I studied labor relations in Europe so my view is a bit skewed, but I think I can answer. So adulthood is a "relatively" new concept in terms of legal issues. What would be considered children now had been participating in work, war and other practices for millennia before the industrial revolution. It had been generally considered that a man did not reach "full" maturity physically until about age 18, but could go to war at around 13,14,15, and women, sexually (that was all they were considered for back then) by about 13/14. It was not until children were being forced to work in factories and mines did laws in the UK start being formed to prevent child labor, and thus define a child. Children younger than nine were not allowed to work, those aged 9–16 could work 16 hours per day per (Cotton Mills Act - 1856 I believe). This then defines "child" as ending at 16 and adulthood starting at 17. Now voting ages, military service and alcohol differ country to country still. In the UK, one could not vote until the age of 21 (this is a completely arbitrary age - there's nothing truly biological about it). Other countries began following 21 for such laws, so the United States made that the voting age circa 1919. Military service was however 18. By the turn of the century, due to labor laws, and arbitrary laws concerning alcohol consumption etc, 18 was generally seen as the age of "Adulthood." this gets muddied by age of consent laws which differs country to country and culture to culture. i.e. it's 14 in Italy and and 16 in a lot of other countries. Again these are arbitrary numbers. In the United States, the issue started to come up in the 1960s during vietnam. 21 to vote, 18 to kill. You had to be 21 to vote but only had to be 18 to fight (you could still drink). In this time many states began changing the drinking age to 21, but Nixon changed the voting age federally to 18 in 1971. This could be seen as the standard for the rest of the world as the majority of countries use 18 for voting AND drinking AND fighting. The United States still uses 21 as a drinking age because of A) old prohibition laws and generally right-wingedness and B) a ton of deaths occurring from drunk driving deaths going from a state where the drinking age was 21 to a state where it was 18 and back again (kids from Connecticut where the age to drink was 21 would drive to NYC to get drunk where it was 18). So instead of just making the drinking age 18 nationally they made it 21.
Hope this answers some of your question.
(Drinking in America: Our Secret History, 2015)
(Child Labor in the British Victorian Entertainment Industry: 1875–1914, 2016)
There have been different ages of majority, and also different ages of majority in different contexts, throughout different time periods, and varying also depending on whether you're considered male or female. Legal rights historically have often been granted to females at an earlier age, although it definitely should be considered that females have historically had far fewer legal rights than males.
In Commentaries on the Laws of England by Sir William Blackstone he provides the following.
Males:
Females:
Regarding indentureship of children in New England, females could be bound until their 18th year, and males could be bound until their 21st year. This was a generally accepted way for poor children to be taken care of, in exchange for their labor, and they'd typically in return receive some level of education, be taught a trade, and be released with appropriate wardrobe. When Vermont updated its constitution in the early 20th century granting greater legal rights, including voting rights to women, the language was amended to say that girls could be indentured for as long as boys (1777 Vermont Constitution, Vermont Constitution as it stands today, Records of Boston Overseers of the Poor)
In the US Civil War, the minimum age was 18 for the North, the same in the South until they dropped it to 17 in 1864. Earlier, the age of enlistment had been 21, or 18 with the consent of your guardian.
Essentially at different ages you have different legal rights, and an adult is generally considered as someone who has full legal rights and responsibilities. However, it varies. These days in the US you're considered an adult at age 18, unless you're talking about alcohol law, in which case you're only considered an adult if you're 21 (The laws of most US states). But you're still not old enough to be President of the United States until you're 35 (US Constitution).
And then there's everything /u/Queensite95 has stated which holds in general, at least in the contexts I'm aware of, for a lot of more recent history, the 18 vs 21 thing has also been an issue in the US (18 to kill, 21 to drink) in modern times.
Hello. Time once again to answer the age-old question, "where the hell are all the comments?"
A sampling from the (currently) 28 removed comments:
Where are the comments?
Dear three people who posted on this thread: you are shadow banned.
Note: No one is shadow banned. If someone is actually shadowbanned, a mod will tell them. I tell everyone I see.
Where are all the comments?
[removed]
[removed]
[removed]
In case it's unclear that's people writing "[removed]".
[removed]
Yeah they keep going. It's not an original joke.
[ReMoVeD]
Low key spongebob meme there.
Why were all the comments removed
[removed]
No really half of the removed comments on any given thread are people saying "[removed]"
All other comments are deleted... That raises a few red flags
I mean I guess, but it's not the red flag you might think it is.
Man the amount of posts that get removed or deleted in this sub is so annoying.
Cool thanks for contributing to the problem.
I am an historian ¯(ツ)/¯
Because 1*8 is an even number
Removed by moderator
Removed.
I mean it just keeps going. Any time a thread gets remotely popular or starts trending on r/all (or whatever r/all is these days with ever-changing Reddit), this happens, and then people see that there are two dozen removed comments and it snowballs, so then we have to leave message like this.
Ah wait there was
I too am curious. How come all of the replies to this post were removed?
Because that's what they were. They were removed because they were non-attempts at an answer.
Please stop contributing to the problem that you came here to whinge about. If you comment about removed comments so that we have to remove your comment, you are the problem you claim to hate.
edit: while I was typing this someone else posted "[removed]".