AGE. The subject of the duration of human and animal life does not fall within the scope of this article, and the reader is referred to LONGEVITY. But the word "age" has been used by physiologists to express certain natural divisions in human devel opment and decay. These are usually regarded as numbering five, viz., infancy, lasting to the seventh year; childhood to the i 4th ; youth to the 21 st ; adult life till 5o ; and old age.
The division of human life into periods for legal purposes is naturally more sharp and definite than it can be for physiological purposes. In Roman law the legal divisions were (I) infantia lasting till the close of the seventh year; (2) the period between infantia and pubertas, males becoming puberes at 14 and females at 12 ; (3) adolescentia, the period between puberty and major ity; and (4) the period after the 25th year, when males become majores. By English law, life is divided into two main periods— infancy, which lasts in both sexes until the 2 I st year, and man hood or womanhood. The period of infancy, again, is divided into several stages, marked by the growing development both of rights and obligations. Thus at 12 years of age a male may take the oath of allegiance; at 14 both sexes are held to have arrived at years of discretion, and may therefore choose guardians, give evi dence, and consent or disagree to a marriage. A female has the last privilege from the 12th year, but the marriage cannot be cele brated until the majority of the parties without the consent of parents or guardians. At 21 both males and females obtain their full legal rights and become liable to all legal obligations. Thus both sexes may enter parliament and be called to the bar, upon attaining majority. In the Church of England, however, a candi date for deacon's orders must be 23 (in the Roman Catholic Church, 22), and for priest's orders 24 years of age; and no clergyman is eligible for a bishopric under 3o. In Scotland in fancy is not a legal term. The time previous to majority, which, as in England, is reached by both sexes at 21, is divided into two stages : pupilage lasts until the attainment of puberty, which the law fixes at 14 in males and I 2 in females ; minority lasts from these ages respectively until 21. Minority obviously corresponds in some degree to the English years of discretion, but a Scottish minor has more personal rights than an English infant in the last stage of his infancy, e.g., he may dispose by will of movable property, make contracts, including that of marriage, carry on trade and become liable to be declared a bankrupt. Throughout the British Empire the age of majority is usually 21, but the nubile age is 20 in the Channel Islands; 18 in New Brunsvvick and Ontario ; 18 f or females in the North-West Territories and 15 for native females in Fiji. In Belgium and France the age of ma jority is 21, and the nubile age 18 f or males and 15 for females, but marriage cannot be contracted without the consent of the parents or guardians if the parties are under 25. The age of ma jority is in Argentina 22; in Chile, Spain and Austria 24; in China 20; in Brazil, Denmark, Holland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Swe den, Switzerland and Tunis, 21. In Denmark the nubile age is 18 for males and 16 for females; in Germany 2o for males and 16 for females, subject to the consent of the parents or guardians, and without such consent the males must be 25 and the females 24. But a person of 18 may be declared of full age by a compe tent court. In Spain majority is reached at 23 ; the nubile age is 18 for males and 16 for females. In Greece the nubile age is 16 for males and 14 f or females; in Holland 18 for males and 16 for females; in Italy 18 for males and 15 for females; in Switzerland 21 for males and 19 for females, but the canton authorities may in extraordinary cases reduce these figures to 19 and 18 respec tively. Marriage by minors is subject to the consent of their parents or guardians.
By the constitution of the United States the President must be not less than 35; a senator not less than 3o, and a representative not less than 25 years of age. The age of majority, as a rule, is 21 for both males and females, but in Arkansas, California, Colo rado, Dakota, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Minne sota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Washington females attain majority at 18. In Maryland, Oregon, and Texas a female attains majority upon marriage. In Iowa Texas and Louisiana both males and females attain majority upon marriage, and in Washington a female minor married to a male of age is regarded as herself of full age. (H. H. L. B.) means a system of compulsory association or classification by age and sex, whereby groups of coevals are admitted by a series of initiatory rites of varying complexity, in cluding generally the payment of a due, into a tribal association with definite functions both within the age-group itself and in relation to the tribe as a whole, promotion to higher degrees, where such exist, being at regular intervals jointly compulsory on all the individuals comprising a group.
Though superficially resembling secret societies (q.v.), and though the ritual of initiation and subsequent ceremonies and esoteric beliefs are secret where a knowledge of them is confined to those who have been initiated and is moreover commensurate with the degree of their initiation, age-grades are differentiated from other forms of association, including secret societies, by the following distinctive features: (I) Admission depends primarily on age and is associated with puberty rites. (2) Every member of the tribe must be affiliated to the system at the proper age. (3) There is no individual admission, but groups of coevals are jointly initiated. (4) Promotion to higher degrees of initiation is similarly compulsory and automatic with the passage of years, even when fees have to be paid or further rites have to be undergone. (5) The system is strictly unilateral, confined to males, though a corresponding institution for females may exist but, where it exists, functions independently. (6) The system is democratic.
Primitive societies are conspicuously divided vertically into families and clans and are horizontally stratified by a variety of associations: religious, occupational, political, social, and so on. Distinction by age and sex cuts across the bonds of consanguinity and creates a new orientation of social activity. Mere classifica tion by age or sex, however, does not of itself indicate an age grade, for a variety of other factors is involved. A physiological classification of a tribe into boys, youths, adults and old men, with their feminine counterparts, stereotyped by custom into a conventional nomenclature, often lacks the distinctive sociologi cal features of an age-grade: just as we find puberty (q.v.) rites in almost all primitive societies, whereas age-grades, though asso ciated with puberty ceremonies and retaining them as an essential element in the complex, are comparatively rare.
Many of the institutions which are reported from different parts of the world, though analogous to age-grades, differ in one or more essential factors and are therefore to be excluded from this survey. Such institutions are found in Australia, New Guinea, in the Banks Islands, among some of the Naga tribes of Assam, and in certain American Indian societies. The aluzhi of the Sema Naga, for instance, are working gangs, with few sociological obligations on the members. They are bisexual, coevality is not essential, and members can be ejected from the group. When clan feeling runs high in a community the aluzhi groups break up, in dicating that the lateral stratification of society has not the same validity as the vertical. In short, all the essentials of an age grade are lacking. The Kimta of Bartle Bay, though it has a super ficial resemblance to an age-grade, admits of individual members being degraded or promoted to lower or higher degrees, thus in validating the paramount theory of group-solidarity. Again, though age is the theoretical basis of Banks Islands' societies it is in fact an unimportant factor, and at every stage of initiation except perhaps the lowest, increasingly prohibitive admission fees have resulted in "a commensality of varying years and vastly different social prospects." This is no less true of America and even in the military societies of the Hidatsa, which approach nearest to the definition, the bases of membership are purchase and age, and group-prOmotion is not automatic but depends on purchase.
Only in Africa, and within a limited area, is the true age-grade system found functioning as a sociological element in tribal life and of the utmost importance. Nowhere do we find age-grades and secret societies concurrently, for secret societies are asso ciated with the evolution of monarchies and powerful aristo cracies, which they both limit and reinforce, whereas age-grades are democratic and are incompatible with any system of central ized and individual authority. This accounts for the absence of age-grades in Bantu societies generally, with the exception of a few Bantu tribes of the eastern group, such as the Akikuyu, Akamba, Giriyama and Chaga, who have been considerably influ enced by neighbouring Hamites and have a culture which is no longer characteristically Bantu. Similarly, on the west coast of Africa we find a system analogous to age-grades among the Kru, where secret societies are almost negligible and are subordinate to the Sedibo class of age-grades, which comprises the tribal legis lature and executive.
The age-grade is the distinctive feature of Hamitic culture and is found in all the tribes of East Africa which belong to the Hamitic or Nilo-Hamitic groups, including the Nilotic Lango. The Galla, with their very complex system, are the centre and source of this culture, and from them it has permeated all the Nilo-Hamitic tribes which cluster round them, the Masai and the Nandi, the Topotha, the Turkana and the Didinga.
There are naturally modifications and variations i,n the sys tem adapted to the cultural requirements of each tribe, but the essentials are basically the same. At the puberty rites (which recur at regular intervals) a group of boys is initiated and they are thus aggregated into tribal, as opposed to family and clan, life. Henceforth they are no longer classed with the women but find themselves in a group of coevals, with a variety of life-long privileges and obligations towards each other. Hospitality within the age-group is compulsory, and at a later stage, when the mem, bers are permitted to marry, this often includes access to the wives of age-mates. The group on the formal side is distinguished by a variety of emblems, such as shield designs, bodily markings and ornaments, and a special name assumed jointly and individu ally at initiation by every member of the group and retained throughout life. Promotion to higher degrees of the system is automatic after a given number of years, and each degree has its own special functions, appropriate ceremonials and emblenis, and often a particular diet and distinctive tabus ; the warrior degree, for instance, being generally prohibited smoking, beer and marriage. The final degree usually enables the group-members to retire from the active life of the tribe to the more passive rOle of an elder.
The essence of the system is the corporate unity of the group, which moves from degree to degree as a single entity. This unity makes the group so significant an element in tribal culture. At the puberty schools and at subsequent initiations on promotion to higher degrees the age-groups receive a systematic education which, as among the Galla, may extend over 32 years. Candidates are instructed in the duties of citizenship, in tribal history and tradition, ethics, the law, hunting, war, religion, husbandry, medicine, sex, in short, in every aspect of individual and com munal life. They are disciplined by hardships and privations and trained to endure all manner of physical discomforts and dangers, in order to be the better able to perform the role traditionally allotted to the group at each degree in its initiation. Among the Galla the system provides for the government of the country by each group in turn during its last eight years of active existence. The Masai and the majority of kindred tribes use the system for military and governmental purposes, and the Lango, thanks to a changed environment, have endowed their age-grade system with functions which are almost exclusively religious. Finally, the system as a whole makes for greater tribal unity by cutting across the narrow limits of the family and the clan, by giving every in dividual an interest in tribal, rather than parochial, concerns, and by making every individual feel that with his group he is for the time the repository of tradition and the custodian of his tribe, both heir to the past and the pledge of posterity.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Erico Cerulli, The Folk-Literature of the Galla Bibliography.-Erico Cerulli, The Folk-Literature of the Galla of Southern Abyssinia 0919); J. H. Driberg, The Lango (1923) ; A Comparative Study of Age-grades (1929) ; Bruno Gutmann, Das Recht der Dschagga (1926) ; A. C. Hollis, The Masai (19o5) ; The Nandi (1909) ; R. H. Lowie, Primitive Society (1921) ; The Origin .of the State (1927) ; H. Schurtz, Altersklassen and Mdnnerbiinde (1902) ; H. Webster, Primitive Secret Societies (1908). (J. H. D.)