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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2804 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 20, 2024

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unindustrialized societies consider adulthood to be around 13-14, which strongly suggests that's when it actually happens, but it's not like they have any other choice in the matter

This isn't true. Teenaged boys in agrarian societies might be expected to do adult levels of work, but they don't get adult levels of say in society(and of course they don't have freedom, because in undeveloped poor agrarian societies no one does) and coming of age rites in agrarian societies for male full adulthood are usually higher than the 18-21 common in the industrialized world.

Now teenaged girls in agrarian societies are commonly married off to much older men and subsequently treated as adult women, but that's not what you're talking about.

because in undeveloped poor agrarian societies no one does

My level of reference is "what was it possible for a 14 year old to do in 1900" compared to "what are they allowed to do today"?

Off the top of my head I can think of "get any entry-level factory job that doesn't require advanced education, support or start a family, get laid, move across the country, buy a weapon, have a beer after work" in 1900. At 15-16, provided you could had reached full adult height and weren't cursed with babyface, you could join the military. Even in the 1930s 14 year olds doing menial tasks like waiting tables was normal enough; evidenced by the youngest Hindenburg staff member that survived that incident being that age.

Today they're... allowed to play on the computer, I guess.

In 1900 the US and Western Europe were industrialized societies with on paper modern laws about the ages you could do things, with the exception of child labor. Sloppy record keeping meant there were lots of high school aged boys in the military, sure, but they lied about their age and got away with it because public records were spotty. And the idea that any appreciable group of people had more sexual freedom at any point prior to 1960 is risible, although I suppose the frequency of prostitution might count as a point in favor of our 14 year old in 1900.

Actually agrarian societies tended to be rather harshly restrictive of teenaged boys and marry the girls off. And that’s still how subsistence farmers behave today.

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