Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2025
ISSN
1744-1617
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Language
en-US
Abstract
This article considers the way legal actors, particularly legislators, judges, and attorneys, make arguments about the appropriate age at which a legal rule should apply to a cohort of adolescents based on their chronological age. Legal actors compare legal “age-gates” to other legal age-gates as a conclusory form of argumentation. Several ages, in particular age 18 and age 21, are particularly powerful anchors in the landscape of age-based legal rules. Age 18 marks a status transformation from legal childhood to legal adulthood, while age 21 served as the former age of adulthood and the current sales age for some controlled substances. These “anchor” age-gates become a powerful tool for judges, attorneys, and legislators seeking to justify claims about individual adolescents or a contested general age-gate. This article argues that legal actors must acknowledge the rhetorical power of anchor age-gates and the likelihood that they will impact outcomes. At the same time, legal actors should take greater care to justify age-gate comparisons by supplementing those comparisons with more substantive arguments. The article concludes by considering the status-transforming nature of marriage and its implications for the age of legal marriage.
Recommended Citation
Katharine B. Silbaugh,
Benchmarking Age-Gates
,
Family Court Review
(2025).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/4087
Comments
Family Court Review, forthcoming