Age of Majority

[Bruce Alan Wilson]

No: HPFGUIDX 155186

"Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/154882>:

<< the arbitrary decision of the WW to make seventeen the age of majority >>

Catlady:
"I suppose it has something to do with their love of prime numbers, like
seventeen Sickles are one Galleon, 29 Knuds are one Sickle. Still, it would have
been equally prime to have 13 Sickles to the Galleon and come of age at 19. If
17 shares some of the powerful magic of 7, then base 10 is less arbitrary than I
think."

Isn't ANY year as the age of majority arbitrary?  After all, people don't
develop at the same rate--some people are quite mature at 12, while other people
still act like adolescents well into their thirties.  In most of the Muggle
world the age of majority is 18, but it wasn't that long ago that it was 21 (for
some purposes it still is; in the US one can't by alcoholic beverages until one
is 21, but one can drive at 16, and one can vote at 18; the age of consent for
sexual purposes varies from state to state; in some states one can get married
as young as 15.) 

BAW



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