Pretty much the title. It seems 18 is universally recognized as the age of adulthood and I’m wondering why such a specific number. Why not 20 for example?
I know there are tribes around the world where children step into adulthood at a younger age, but usually there is some sort of rite of passage involved.
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Historically there were different ages for different things. Age of mariage was usually around 12-14 if there was one, age of vote was usually around 21-25 if people could vote, etc.
18 was common for the age men could be drafted to fight for a war. It became the main age of rights because people would say that if someone can be forced to fight for its country, they should have the right to “something”, the something being vote, alcohol, smoking, etc. Then people started seeing 18 as the normal age for everything and some countries and states started postponing some rights till 18 too.
18 is still not the absolute age of rights. Age of consent is still mostly in the 14-16 range with extreme values from 12 to 18 for example. In the US, age of legal drugs is typically 21. Age of diving is often 16. Though there are people who believe 18 should be the age for everything and push for laws to be changed. It seems many people feel the need to have only one age used for laws.
18 was historically the age to be drafted (and still is where there is a draft) because it’s typically the age at which a man stop getting taller and started getting more muscular, which was very important historically for war since combat was physically very intensive. Historically, men 18-25 were considered to be the fittest so they were typically the ones to be drafted.
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