Age of majority
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The age of majority is the threshold of adulthood as recognized or declared in law. It is the moment when minors cease to be considered children and assume legal control over their persons, actions, and decisions, thus terminating the control and legal responsibilities of their parents or guardian over them. Most countries set majority at 18. The word majority here refers to having greater years and being of full age as opposed to minority, the state of being a minor. The law in a given jurisdiction may not actually use the term "age of majority". The term typically refers to a collection of laws bestowing the status of adulthood. The age of majority does not necessarily correspond to the mental or physical maturity of an individual.
Age of majority should not be confused with the age of sexual consent, marriageable age, school leaving age, drinking age, driving age, voting age, smoking age, etc., which each may be independent of, and sometimes set at a different age from the age of majority.
Although a person may attain the age of majority in a particular jurisdiction, they may still be subject to age-based restrictions regarding matters such as the right to vote or stand for elective office, act as a judge, and many others.
HERE 18 IS SET AS THE AGE OF ADULTHOOD. -TYR
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More than 800 years after the first recorded age of consent laws, the one constant is the lack of consistency. Laws around the world define the socially appropriate age of consent anywhere from 13 to 18. Some differentiate between heterosexual and homosexual acts while others do not. Some apply to young men as well as young women and others remained focused on the lives and actions of girls. And beyond the legislation lies the world of practice, an even more complex story.
How to Cite This Source
Stephen Robertson, "Age of Consent Laws," in Children and Youth in History, Item #230, https://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/case-studies/230 (accessed September 6, 2016).
^^^&& YEP, LETS SCOFF AT 800 YEARS OF PRECEDENCE, THAT CLEARLY PUTS BY A VAST MAJORITY THE AGE OF 18 AS BEING THE THRESHOLD FOR BEING CLASSED AS AN ADULT.---Tyr
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Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Separating the Men from the Boys
In response to my post about "Realmannspracht," a reader brought up a concern about how we, as a society, can mark the transition from boyhood to manhood. In the past, society had various rites by which males moved from being a child to being an adult. However, we need to realize that the transition is not really dictated by society, but by biology. Manhood is still something God, not culture, gives to men. I think we've fooled our ourselves into believing otherwise, but inasmuch as we have done so, it has been to the detriment of boys, men, and our culture as a whole.
Let's look what the Apostle Paul said:
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. (1 Corinthians 13:11, NASB)
Note the progression: (1) A child acting like a child, (2) becoming a man, and then (3) putting away childish things. Step 3 does not come before Step 2.
We like to say, "Act your age." Why do we do this? Because we have subconsciously regarded biological age as the determining factor of someone's development. You don't expect someone who indeed a boy to act like a man. Likewise, you don't expect someone who is indeed a man to act like a boy. Life is indeed a series of initiations for men. They are not initiations from boyhood to manhood, but initiations from one social set of expectations to another. Some rites are indeed optional, like marriage or having children.
The cultures of the past understood this. They may have said, "You don't become a man until you do (xyz)" but their actions pointed towards a different, far deeper reality. Think about the Bar Mitzvah. People don't have the ceremony for 26-year-old men with jobs, houses, spouses, and children. They don't say to these men, "Ok, now you're a man." No, the Bar Mitzvah happens at a very young age. While the Bar Mitzvah may not be a initiation in manhood, per se, the Talmud is clear that boys become men around the time of puberty.
So, we need to remind teenagers of a sobering reality. They are no longer boys and girls. They are men and women. They are at an age of life when their focus should be on taking on the responsibilities of adulthood. What I am saying is shocking to a culture that clings tightly to extended adolescence, the banalities of youth culture, and the choice of older people to refuse to act their age ("60 is the new 40" or whatever). And yet, what I am saying has support from other conservatives.
Teenagers need to realize that just because they are adults, they do not get the privileges of adulthood until they earn them by acting responsibly. I didn't get to use a car for myself until I learned to drive. I didn't get to come and go as I pleased from my home until I moved out, got a real job and payed my own rent at age 24. The expectation was there that I needed to move towards these things. If I stalled anywhere along the way, I got dressed down.
Teenagers are not ready for sex until they are ready for marriage. If they are ready at age 18 like their great-grandparents, more power to them. If they have to wait till their forties to get ready for marriage, so be it. Marriage and sex are the a privileges of adulthood, not the things that make you an adult.
Someone will retort that a 16-year-old "boy" [sic] is not as mature as a 26-year-old man. True, but a 26-year-old man is usually not as mature as a 46-year-old man. Just because a male teenager doesn't have all his ducks in a row doesn't mean he is not a man. In fact, having all one's ducks in a row usually takes a lifetime. The 16-year-old man just happens to be near the beginning of the journey unlike some of us. Remember, the State may say one is a man at 18, then bump the age up to 21, then to 25, etc. But what the State does is irrelevant to nature. It may prohibit me from doing things until I reach a certain age, but it can't deny that I am a man when indeed I am a man.
What have we learned? There is no real initiation into adulthood, per se. You are an adult when your body says so, but you don't get the perks and privileges that adults enjoy until you earn them. The last point goes for any age.
Now, a reader said something about people regarding me as a "boy" when they denied I was a "man." Well, if I was indeed a boy, then why the contempt? If I was indeed a boy, then I was acting according to the stage of my physiological development. However, if I was actually a man, then the people calling me a "boy" were most likely trying to insult me and trying to play upon any insecurities society attempts to inculcate into men about their masculinity.
Inasmuch as people uphold the age-old lie that manhood, unlike womanhood, is something that can be granted or denied by culture, then I must regard any charge they make against my manhood as being in earnest. After all, such people clearly think they can invalidate my manhood through opprobrium and censure. They would, however, be guilty of slandering me, an action which is regarded as sinful by the Word of God (1 Corinthians 6:10). If God and nature says I am a man, then who are you to bear false witness? If we want men, but especially young men, to be mature, then let's do it by speaking according to the truth, not by resorting to playground insults and acting like children ourselves.
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District of Columbia Legal Ages Laws
When does a child become an adult? While you might get a different answer depending on who you ask, the law is very clear. Forty-seven states and the District of Columbia set the age of majority at eighteen years of age. That’s when a minor becomes an adult and assumes the full rights available to them under the law.
It's important to understand the significance of becoming an adult, however. While restrictions on minors' ability to gamble, buy cigarettes, and manage their own property or money might seem burdensome, these restrictions are designed to protect minors. Those protections and benefits cease on becoming an adult. An eighteen year old is bound to honor contracts entered into and can be charged with crimes as an adult.
Most legal obligations on parents (such as paying child support) cease on a child reaching eighteen years of age too. Here’s quick summary of legal age laws in the District of Columbia and some specific notes on what minors can’t do without a parent or guardian.
D.C. Legal Ages Laws
The age of majority in the District of Columbia is eighteen years. Attaining adulthood removes many of the age restrictions in place under D.C. law. Minors need a representative to file a lawsuit, cannot gamble, face restrictions on accessing winnings from a lottery prize, cannot marry without parental consent, and cannot purchase or possess cigarettes or tobacco products. All of these disappear on turning eighteen. There’s still the restriction on buying alcohol, however, which is twenty-one in the District.
Other legal obligations tied to a child’s minority are altered as well. Minors who possess legal claims generally have additional time to file a lawsuit. Once they turn eighteen, the statute of limitations on any legal claim may start to run. And while holding minors to contracts can prove difficult, adults can be held to their contracts and obligations no matter how bad a deal it turned out to be.
The law also restricts what kind of jobs and what kind of hours minors can work. These disappear at the age of eighteen too, even if you're still in school. For parents, child support obligations generally cease once a child reaches the age of majority. Reaching adulthood can serve as a trigger for other rights and obligations as well.
BY PRECEDENCE AND MAJORITY OPINION/LEGAL STANDING, ON THE MATTER THE CORRECT WORD USED --should have been --"man"---...
Yet the naysayers will cry the number 19 -says teen--while knowing that apply that logic as if the number was 13 is invalid and ridiculous!
That they do this to in a roundabout way defend Islam says it all.
FFing APPEASERS , THAT WILL USE ANY STRETCH TO TRY TO DEFEND ISLAM.
MY POINT WAS THAT A 19 YEAR OLD MAN IS CONSIDERED A MAN WHERE A UNDERAGE GIRL IS CONCERNED AND WOULD BE CALLED A MAN BY MEDIA COVERING SUCH A STORY--BUT HERE WE HAD THE TERM -TEEN- USED!
AND I CORRECTLY NOTED IT WAS A STANDARD USED(BY MEDIA) TO TRY TO NEGATE THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE CHARGE IN ORDER TRY TO PROTECT ISLAM...
As usual, appeasers will come out to cry foul but none of them would call a 19 year old man having sex with their underage child --a teenager..
Nor would they say--"be my guest young male child--have a go with her".
Hypocrisy here by the usual suspects quite evident to see and its almost always the case every time I correctly point out anything even remotely negative about the worldwide murdering, insane scourge called Islam..
They just can not help but expose themselves.--Tyr
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Originally Posted by Drummond
