 Law of adoption (Mormonism)

The law of adoption was a ritual practiced in temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) between 1846 and 1894 in which men who held the priesthood were sealed in a father–son relationship to other men who were not part of nor even distantly related to their immediate nuclear family.Some younger men who were sealed by the law of adoption were called "sons" and took the surname of the older man, whom they called their "father".