I’m not asking this from a biology lens, I get that aspect, but more from the sociology/anthropology lens. My question is which culture started using 18 as this hard cutoff, when, and under what reasoning.
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I think it’s generally tied to the age your society expects the average person to be *productive*/*independant* to some degree. And it’s relative to the needs/opportunities of the common person in the society/time period.
15 year old William in the middle ages probably isn’t in school, he’s probably going to be working the wheat fields with his father. They’ll call him an adult and not treat him with kid gloves because he has nothing else to do *but* learn to be productive/carry on responsibilities.
15 year old Billy in 2024 isn’t expected to be farming all day, he’s expected to do his algebra homework so he can still graduate high school while William probably doesn’t even have an opportunity to learn to *read*, or to even spend years learning a trade that would give him better success. Billy has tons of classes and many years of study ahead of him before he can be remotely independent or productive to the point where we can call him an adult.
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