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 don’t have an answer for that, but I do have an interesting answering for why the age of majority is sometimes 21: English legal tradition, and by extension the American founding fathers, were really into sevens.
For example, the common law rule on “infancy” was that children under 7 are never responsible for their actions, children under 14 are presumed *not* to be responsible for their actions unless proven otherwise, children under 21 are presumed to be responsible for their actions unless proven otherwise, and at age 21 you’re on your own. Eventually this evolved into the modern system of “juvenile court”.
That’s also why the U.S. Constitution requires the President to be at least 35 years old and a resident of the U.S. for at least 14 years (as well as a natural born citizen.) There are lots of other examples, but those are the only ones I remember right now.
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