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What’s in a Number? America Has a Maturity Problem.
Shakespeare asked, “What’s in a name?” I ask, “What’s in a number?”
Particularly, I want to know what chronological age is magical, that which allows you to do something on your birthday that you could not do the day before. If you are 17 you may not vote, you may not buy a long gun, or you may not join the military without permission. But at age 18, in one magical moment, from 11:59 p.m. local time to 12:00 a.m., you have gained the wisdom and the right to do all these things.
While progressives howl at the prospect of an immature young man buying an AR-15, they also tell us that five-year-olds may reject their genitals, that 13-year-olds should be encouraged to use theirs (and the genitals of others) and hide their subsequent abortions from their parents. Oh, and please acknowledge that college-age kids are incapable of acquiring health insurance and should be allowed to sponge off their working moms and dads AND that they were too stupid to understand the terms of their student loans so those must be forgiven.
And yet, while we’re humping and killing and shooting and recklessly spending a fortune on useless university degrees, we have somehow also convinced ourselves that we’re all too young to get married before our mid-thirties.
That tells me we don’t have a numbers problem. We have a maturity problem. And I don’t know how to cure that. As a society, we’re granting feel-good rights too early and postponing real adulthood until it’s almost too late to put it to good use. And for that, we probably deserve all the misery that’s coming our way.
Published in General
I’m trying to think of anyone who would be unfairly affected by your plan. Hard to think of one. What about a 19-year-old mother of 1, married to a 23-year-old plumber’s apprentice? Would she be able to vote? Or should she even be able to?
Why, so she can perhaps very likely cancel out her husband’s vote?
I thought this way, too. Make one age for adulthood and make it apply across the board.
But then I read that there is a difference between age of majority, which is an age for the general classification of adult, and age of license which is the restriction or lack of restrictions for people regardless of whether they are minors or adults. Driving cars, non-marital sex, marriage, owning a gun, buying cigarettes or alcohol, and gambling are examples. And then a court or marriage emancipates a minor, but does not change the ages of license for various activities.
My guess is that (despite legislators loving to create more and more laws according to their own temporal whims) that most or at least a lot of these ages of license have good (or at least some) rational experience-based reasons for them (of course, filtered by local cultural proprieties).
Yes, if a 16- or 17-year-old kidnaps and literally tortures someone for days, for fun, before the police find the location and stop it, and make an arrest, are there any juvenile laws that would appropriately deal with this crime? Or is this crime one that transcends age categories?
Well, that’s part of what I was asking. Should any women that is emancipated by marriage be allowed to vote (if the voting age is, say, 21); she’s clearly acting and living as an adult and has taken on adult responsibilities.
And as for cancelling out another’s vote, should any Democrat be allowed to vote, since my neighbor who has different priorities would cancel out my vote?
Different households seem to me a separate issue from a spouse cancelling out the vote of the person supporting them and the rest of the household. A resulting problem, of course, would be the possibility that they wouldn’t be married because the erstwhile wife wouldn’t be willing to give up her vote. Although if she only had her own vote if she were independently employed (and ideally a property owner) perhaps the motivation to get married would remain: if she didn’t have her own vote anyway, getting married wouldn’t change that. And for that matter, maybe the husband in that situation should get 3 votes: his, hers, and the kid’s. Although that could lead to “blackmail” a la the Cheers example:
Well one thing is that anyone who has not finished puberty is definitely not an adult. Tanner Stages puts the last stage at age 15.
After puberty, physical development is largely complete and energy is put into mental development. I would consider that to be a pretty solid cut off between child and progressing to independent adult.
Noting that I do not mind women losing the right to vote, I’d consider legal marriage as evidence of adulthood, dependent and sahm notwithstanding. So still a dependent, but legally wed.
And if that alters dynamics around marriage, I don’t think we’d be worse off for it.
Since we’re throwing around questionable ideas on granting voting rights to women who are not quite independent women, how about limiting the vote to women who have offspring and are not dependent on welfare …
Not sure how far that should go. At least up until recently, it was possible to get married as young as I think 14 with parental consent. And maybe court permission too. Is a married 14-year-old an adult?
They’ better be.
What if she’s dependent on her husband, or parents…?
The court permission rides on ascertaining the girl’s maturity level for it. If we already have a court determining she is mature enough for marriage, then we already have a statement on her maturity and I think marriage and babies (together) are pretty sure fire indicators of a woman’s adulthood.
Personally, I think 14 is too young and age of consent should be at least 16.
That would be optimal, sure. But what about creating an(other) incentive for young girls to get “knocked up” if, instead/along with welfare/section 8/food stamps/etc, it gives them the vote at 14?
Dependent on parents, I’d question it. Dependent on husband, give her the vote.
Marriage and motherhood are adult rights of passage for young women. If you think she’s a child and she’s married with babies, then she shouldn’t be married with babies.
However, I do not think someone who Willy milky spread their legs and is just hawking their kid off to other adults is demonstrating adult responsibility. Setting up a household may legally make a wife a dependent for tax purposes, but she is an adult with adult responsibilities.
The court approval isn’t always required, sometimes it’s just the parent(s). In that case it might be just because they want her out of the house. Maybe because she didn’t get along with the new boyfriend/girlfriend.
What about the already-existing differentiation between spouse (or just single) and “head of household?” For whoever most provides for the family – starting with but maybe not exclusively based on earned income – to be considered “head of household” and they get all the votes for the “household,” maybe just one, maybe two for both adults, maybe add votes for children, those parts can be hashed out later, in detail.
I don’t think that’s right. Head of household is not always the most politically astute and a wife being a dependent does not confer lack of responsibility or intellect. I think that is a bridge too far if the goal is maintaining a woman’s right to vote.
I also think it would lead to more eschewing of marriage and motherhood, because women want to be equal partners in marriage, not seen as the dumb broad fit only for cooking, cleaning, and breeding.
You would be better off removing a woman’s right to vote completely and totally than not allowing dependent wives to vote.
FYI, I’m a dependent and my husband is head of household. I prepare the sample ballots in our household.
Maybe you’re the exception that proves the rule. Do you think most wives are on your level? One of the most important aspects of not having women vote at all, if it came (back) to that, is that a majority of them don’t do it wisely, even if you and every one of your female friends is personally great. But if you all get equal votes, then your and your friends’ sensible votes are totally overwhelmed by idiots who think Biden is “handsome” or whatever. It’s pretty short-sighted to argue that YOUR vote should be sacrosanct even if the result is chaos. Or worse.
I put it right up there with arguments that an illegal vote drop-box shouldn’t be excluded because that “disenfranchises” the maybe 10 valid people who put their votes in it. No, what “disenfranchises” those 10 valid votes are the 1,000 bogus “harvested” votes that went in there too. “Counting all the votes” disenfranchises those people by 100 to 1.
If she were still living at home with her mother, I’d say not. But from what I understand she is legally automatically emancipated. She’s still not allowed to vote, but free to apply for and receive government subsidies in her own name.
I was really think of women aged 18 through 20 who would lose the vote if it were raised, as being able to vote once married and mothering.
A father is just as dependent on his wife and a mother is on her husband. I know 60-year-olds who are interdependent on one another. :)
In some ways, sure. But if the husband isn’t working, who keeps them from getting evicted etc?
I believe age of consent is technically “license” (rather than age of “majority”) which is restricted by laws apart from adult status. There are a lot of activities that restrict or permit activities by age for both minors and adults. I believe age of consent to sex, for example, is often different from things like entering contracts and marriage without parental consent.
One problem with current age-of-consent laws is that they in effect encourage teenagers to make babies with other teenagers, neither of whom might be capable of – or interested in – supporting them. But basically if either side is NOT just a teenager, they risk jail. Not a smart system.
A lot of people continue to grow physically in stature to, and even past, the age of 18. Males don’t grow full beards until about age 18 (if I remember — sheesh). Menstruation doesn’t always happen before 15, either.
I think the concept of voting by age or by social status and responsibility, is what we really are talking about here. And I have no problem with anyone still being denied the vote under whatever the age is (18 as of today) regardless of social position (working, married, fathering or mothering, etc.).
I disagree. There is no need for an artificial consistency.
Voting I think should just be strictly age-based and it is our challenge to create a country where everyone who reaches that age is worthy of the privilege.*
Certain actions by individuals would cause them to lose the privilege like criminal acts.
I do think there should be some type of basic exam in order to get your Voter Photo ID. We have exams in order to operate vehicles. Which privilege is more important? That might even foster more turnout.
I’d almost like to have a ballot exam prior to being allowed to vote in each election. Something like matching each candidate’s name to the office they are running to hold.
*Edited to add we should also work hard on making sure everyone reaches that age.
Leftists will agree on a driving test much easier than a voting test.
I’m concerned about 2nd order effects. We want:
1) Men and Women to marry and have kids
2) Kids to be in a married home and raised by mothers and fathers
3) At least some capacity for a parent to be available to pass cultural values on to the next generation.
Tying a vote to head of household demolishes what tenuous thread still exists on all three of those.