I don't think anyone was arguing that adopted children are any less meaningful than biological children, but if a 60 year old business owner adopts a 40 year old manager who works at his company that's really not the same thing.

Exactly. This isn't some love relationship, it's about keeping the family name in the company. The manager loses his family name but gets the perk of inheriting a company out of it.

It depends if it includes breastfeeding and snugging or not.

It is the same family, though it would be more amazing if they adopted and raised younger kids kids without consideration for whether they would inherit the business or not, and still manage to keep the business in the family for 1300 years.

But the act of passing the business down to non-blood related adults for 1300 years without going belly up is amazing.

AS a father of three adopted children I ask the same. Adoption is family even if they look different then your own skin they are family.

Nobody's disputing that, but the Japanese custom for adult adoption is something else entirely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_adult_adoption

So if you adopt a child and raise it as your own and that child takes over your business, is it still a "family business? Yes.

But can you say it's still a "family" business if it's gone through the Japanese custom of adult adoption? Arguably yes, because that person was brought into their family as a legitimate heir.

On the other hand you could argue that it's no different than a family business being sold in the western sense, it's just that in ancient Japan you couldn't really buy and sell businesses, they were owned by clans, so this was their mechanism for ensuring business continuity when there was no suitable male heir.

I'm not taking a stance on whether it's still a "real" family business, but it's important to understand that what the Japanese mean by "adoption" in this sense is not at all what westerners mean when they use that word.

Another reminder that Japan extended their feudal period longer than most.

Then again, the west took on the practice of putting the founders name on a corporations...

My adopted Children when Adopted (10, 20, 22) They were in my house at 7, 11, 15 from the same mother. LONG story but I ended up adopted the two older ones when they were ready which wasn't till they were adults.

Nobody is arguing that adoption per se isn't the same as "the same family". The practice being described here is that the adoption is specifically adopting someone _because_ they're going to be the next owner of the business. I'm sure you can see that there's a salient difference between your case of adopting to build a family vs the case here of a 65 year old guy adopting his 50-year old successor as part of a tradition of that business.