Thank you, Stephen!
Mayhaps, thou hast observed a certain dichotomy emanating from the socialist venues of media and politics which would have one simultaneously believe that a sixteen-year-old is mature, wise, and sophisticated enough that they ought be vested with the franchise, whilst those very persons and anyone under the age of twenty-one is to immature, impulsive, and foolish to keep and bear one specific variant of a rifled firearm.
As a species, humans like to create numeric ages of demarcation, being marked and measured by just how many times a person has traveled around the sun, celebrated once per trip upon the anniversary of such person’s nativity.
In traditional legal circles, they used to indulge in a concept of the “rule of sevens” which evenly divided youth into three groups: where below the age of 7 a child was expected to be in his mother’s care; thence until the age of 14 the child was expected to be educated, learning duty and responsibility; finally, after the age of 14 they were introduced to the wider world of the community at large, to learn their vocation and place in society; and finally becoming an adult at the age of 21.
It is thus that most age of consent laws were constructed about this age of 14, but that often being deem just a little too young become the Spanish custom of the quinceañera or the English “sweet sixteen”, debutante, or “coming out” party.
In a more general less legalistic and mathematically symmetrical, societal tradition in western societies, there are generally demarcations of significant ages at 16, 18, 21, and 25, which keep reappearing and recurring. These are the target years of our numerology magic relating to modern adult status.
But what is the concept of adult status if not a mark of competence?
In legal terminology, the word competent is used as a basic requirement of witness testimony of a witness with regards to that witness’s capability or capacity to have knowledge about what they are called to testify.
For example, a blind witness is competent to testify as to what he has overheard, but would naturally be deemed incompetent to testify about what he has seen. A witness who was not present at all, is not really a witness at all because they lack competency.
When addressing the demarcations for adulthood, it is a similar concept of capacity and capability which we address, but also combined with a level of responsibility, foresight, and awareness when we measure a person’s capacity as an adult. (Intelligence and wisdom are desirable, but too much to honestly hope from most adults, thus an impoper criteria for adulthood.)
Generally, we find that it is better that a person have a limited, guided experience and exposure to new venues of life before we simply turn them loose with new privileges, capacities and responsibilities. Thus, as a society, we impose a learner’s permit with regards to driving a car, which has dramatically reduced teenage car fatalities over the last few decades.
One is left to wonder why we do not impose a learning period for other adult activities such as drinking or dating. Mind that traditionally there have been stages of courtship which our modern society is increasingly prone to ignore.
So, to the present situation, why and when did the voting age get established? In many states, the voting age was established as the more traditional 21 years of age, but the federal government had passed laws pushing down the age of voting in federal elections to 18.
“The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.” Amendment 26, US Constitution (1971)
But why?
Well, because it was then the current year. I know, that is not a proper rationality, but look at the year. It was the height of the Vietnam war after many years of creeping escalation, while Hollywood was busy pushing relentlessly the youth culture to drive the hippie counter-culture of the baby boomers.
There was an assurance then that those hippies would predominantly vote left, thus assuring Democrats an even stronger hold on Congress. It was also the demographics of the baby boom and the incentive to capture a large voting block.
There was also the rationality that 18 year olds were fighting and dying in a war that had been going on for over a decade. If they could fight and die, then it was hard to argue that they should have no say in whether there ought to be a war at all. From a nation built upon “no taxation without representation”, the logic of “no fighting without representation” seems apparent.
At that time, the drinking age was 18 as well, so in the seventies, and early eighties there was a convergence of adulthood at 18, a consistency across differnet areas of society.
Then in the mid-eighties there was a push to raise the drinking age from 18 to 21. Prior to that, there was a clear distinction that if a person was in college or the military, they were adults, they could legally contract, so they should be able to drink.
People decided that eighteen year olds were not responsible enough to drink, in part because of the war on drugs where society was trying to reign in the excesses of the drug legacy of the ‘60s and ‘70s, and while those drugs were illegal, there was available legal drugs of alcohol and cigarettes to regulate.
It was still difficult to impose a 21 year old drinking age when men could still fight and die in a war at the age of 18, so attitudes did not magically change simply because the law changed. The police in my hometown told the bar owners that as long as they kept out the high school kids, they really didn’t care.
But, why 21?
The age of 21 harkened back to Shakespearian times, and that rule of 7s mentioned earlier. In particular, it makes it’s presence felt in the Rule against Perpetuities, which means that under “the Common Law, the principle that no interest in property is valid unless it vests not later than twenty-one years, plus the period of gestation, after some life or lives in being which exist at the time of the creation of the interest.”
It was the established as the age of adulthood in an earlier era, because it was the age of inheritance. That was an era where there was no such thing as a drinking age, and military service was established by the militia criteria of 15 to 50, 16 to 60, or 17 to 70. (They liked their alliteration.) Military service was not a mark of manhood so much as physical ability to carry a weapon.
Going back to medieval times, often estates would be held in trust until a man achieved the age of 25, though sometimes 21 or 18, but not as typically, because it was generally accepted that a man was physically mature by the age of 21, but did not get over his natural tendency towards reckless or wanton behavior until he was 25.
Modern science backs up this ancien perspective of mental maturity because the human brain does not fully mature until the age of 25, in particular that region of the brain responsible for inhibiting risky behavior.
Which explains why insurance rates drop across the board when the driver hits 25 years of age. While that does actually correspond to the idea expressed in Obamacare that young people should be on their parent’s insurance policies until they are 26, that would also imply that they were not adults for other purposes as well.
So, what is a proper criteria for competence which should mark a sufficient maturity for adulthood regarding various responsibilities and aspects of society?
Generally accepted romantic interest, the age of consent, sets around 16, people generally reach their full height by 18, but then will generally keep putting on muscle mass until about 21, but the brain is not fully developed until 25.
By a maturity standard, the age of voting should be increased, not lowered, and then probably to the age of 25; but by the ‘70s standard of the fighting age of men adulthood should start at 18; but a happy medium between these extremes would be adult by 21, which meets a popular conception.
A standard of consistency would demand that the age to buy a gun, vote, drink, drive, and be an adult should be the same; but politics drives a piecemeal approach to adulthood for their own manipulation.
Of the various possible ages for adulthood, the one which has virtually no merit or basis in logic or reason is the idea that 16 or younger could ever mark a reasonable level of adult competency. What is the level of competency and capacity that we as a society should demand of people before allowing them to be considered a full adult alongside us?
