AGE, in law (ante), is that period of life at which persons are permitted legally to exercise certain rights which for lack of A. they had been restrained from. In general, a person is " of age" on the day preceding the 21st anniversary of birth. The "A. of discretion" is at 14 years for males and 12 for females, at which point either may marry or elect guardians. At full A. (21) male citizens can vote and hold office, except in cer tain specified cases, such as a representative in congress, who must be 30 years of age, a senator 35, and the president 35. The " military A.," confined to males, is from 18 to 45 years. In N. Y. no judge can hold office "after he is 70 years of age; male citizens over and under 60 arc subject to jury duty. In mythology and poetic fancy, the course of the world was divided into 5 ages: the golden A., when Saturn reigned, was a period of innocence and happiness; the silver A., under the rule of Jupiter, was the voluptuous period; the brazen A., when Neptune held sway, was a warlike interval; the heroic A. under Mars was also warlike and adventurous; while the iron A.,with Pluto as the ruler;
was one of human degradation and misery. In chronology we have many ages, the principal being the antediluvian and the postdiluvian. In anthropology there is the A. of stone, the A. of bronze, and the A. of iron, indicated by the use of these substances for tools in successive periods. In geology there are the azoic, the Silurian, the devonian, the carboniferous, the reptilian, the mammalian; and the A. of man, or the present A. In letters there are the A. of Pericles in Greece, the Augustan A. in Rome, the Elizabethan A. in England, and the Augustan A. in France under Louis XIV. There is the heathen Ers opposed to the Christian A.; the A. of the crusades; the dark A.'s, the middle A.'s and the A. of steam. The progress of mental activity has been divided into the A. of the supernatural, the A. of the metaphysical, and the A. of the positive. Physiologically human life is divided into infancy, youth, manhood, and old A.; in which list some insert the A. of childhood, of boy or girlhood, or adolescence.