Age of Majority

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 155217

"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."
> 
BAW responded:
> 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.) 

Carol responds:
If you go back to the thread that Catlady linked to (link retained in
this post), you'll see that I made exactly that point, with examples
similar to yours. The unsnipped sig line reads, "Carol, noting that
the arbitrary decision of the WW to make seventeen the age of majority
should not, IMO, make a difference in the way we judge these
characters but still wondering whether Draco was sixteen or seventeen
when he faced Dumbledore on the tower."

The reason I mentioned Draco is that his birthday is June 5, so if the
events on the tower occurred on June 1-4 (and we know that they
occurred in early June), he was 16; if they occurred on June 5 or
later, he's 17. So a few days' difference determines whether he's a
"child" or a "man" when he endangers the staff and students of
Hogwarts by smuggling the Death Eaters into the school and acts as an
accessory to the murder of Dumbledore, which would not have occurred
had he not let the DEs into the school. (In RL, he'd be a minor in
either case.) In terms of emotional maturity, a few days make no
difference. (I'm not considering the mead or the poisoned necklace,
both cases of attempted murder that occurred when he was definitely
underage.)

By the same token, Harry will become a "man" on July 31. The
protective magic on the Dursleys' house will expire and he'll be an
"adult" when he confronts Voldemort. (Ron and Hermione are already
ostensibly adults, as were Fred and George when they were expelled
from Hogwarts.)

So, yes, it's all arbitrary, in RL or the WW. But why did JKR choose
17 instead of 18 as the age of majority in the WW? I think it's
because she gave Harry her own birthday (conveniently making him a
single age throughout each school year, 11 in year 1, 12 in year 2 and
so on). Even though there's apparently not going to be a  year 7 at
Hogwarts (unless JKR is messing with our expectations, which I
wouldn't put past her), Harry will still be 17 for most of Book 7.
IMO, she wants him to be a "man" when he confronts and defeats
Voldemort, and in order to do that, given his birthday, she had to
make 17 the age of majority in the WW.

At any rate, I don't think it has anything to do with prime numbers
(and as for base 10, I always thought it was entirely natural because
children instinctively use their ten fingers for counting).

Carol, still wondering whether Draco was 16 or 17 on the tower and
whether those few days will make a difference to the Wizengamot if
they find him guilty of criminal endangerment or being an accessory to
murder (crimes that, IMO, he did commit, and intended to commit before
the extenuating circumstance of threats to his family occurred)