In almost all countries (I know there are exceptions), the age for allowing drinking, marriage, driving etc. are commonly 18/21. Why didn’t they go for a round figure number like 20? Is there any biological or psychological reason behind this that I’m not aware of?
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21 is not a global number, 18 might be.
And 18 has some origins in jewish religious rules and became popular in the west and with that the whole world in modern history.
18 is about the time when men stop getting physically taller.
In societies that relied very heavily on manual labor, that was a pretty big developmental milestone.
Some of those same societies actually marked 16 as the age of majority for women, for similar reasons. Which is still reflected in some laws and cultural views today.
This came from british academy of science around 200 years ago. The conducted huge research and found the safest age for a women to labot a child around 20 years. Than subtracted 2 years (1 for pregnancy, 1 for arrangements).
In same time to most mens (who can afford it) finished college around 18. Thus 18 became very convinient age to state adulthood.
18 is the age when everyone is fully out of puberty and the age when mandatory education is finished.
That’s the legality of being an adult, but it can be different culturally. For example, girls become women on their 15th birthday for Hispanics who celebrate Quinceaneras. Religiously, Jews celebrate Bat Mitzvahs as a transition into adulthood at like ~13.
Basically it was just trial and error.
In the old days, being “adult” meant very different things than today – there was no voting or drivers licenses or things like that in ancient Rome for example.
In older times, it was common for various cultures for a young person to be mentored by an adult to learn adult skills, and then have some kind of ceremony to signify they are an adult. In some ancient Greek cultures you could be considered an adult at like 14. In other cultures adulthood was an age where you could participate in various religious ceremonies. In other cultures it was common to do some kind of feat or go through something (eg getting ritually cut, or tattooed or whatever. It also depended on sex – in many cultures for example women weren’t considered adult till they married (or the equivalent).
As society developed, the ages of majority changed to fit the different needs of society – for example when legal contracts become common, or when societal rules around marriage changed, or when industrialisation or education changed.
Even now, 18 or 21 isn’t really a blanket thing. Most countries will have different ages for sex, legal stuff, driving, drinking, owning firearms, holding certain positions etc. it’s just that 18 is kind of when we’re “mostly done”. We’re pretty.much fully grown, we’ve (hopefully) had a bunch of education, a bunch of experience, and it’s just hoped that you know enough by then to do stuff yourself.
If you start school at 6 years old and have 12 years of mandatory school then the graduates are 18. So, that’s the “start of work” age back in the day, setting aside the minority of folks that go to college.
But then college kids got into a bunch or trouble with excess drinking and “it seemed like a good idea” to move to 21 in some jurisdictions. There is no “reason” for any of this, it’s just what legislators could get agreement on.
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