The intent of this paper is to examine the role of age in different legal systems. In particular this paper brings into focus minors of young age. The questions which will be raised are the role of minors in certain legal issues and when these selected societies give minors certain social rights and combine those with certain social duties as well as the background of these roles in different societies and different time eras.

1.) Origins in ancient legal systems

In the following chapter the juvenile justice system will be examined in further detail within the most-known ancient law systems, as there are the ancient Greek and the ancient Roman law. Subsequently potential similarities, modern modifications and important differences will be discussed.

The origins and the roots of different legal systems are important to help us understand the actual differences between them and furthermore they show us that in certain aspects, different legal systems are not completely different to each other but rather show similarities because of their common origin.

a.) Juvenile Justice in the ancient Rome

Age limits and age restrictions, as well as the need to differ between an adult and a child, can already be found in the ancient Roman law.

Pursuant to the ancient Roman law a roman citizen owns two different capacities, on the one hand a.) the “legal capacity”; and on the other hand b.) the “dispositive capacity”. The legal capacity includes legal rights and duties, which arise automatically with the birth. On the contrary the dispositive capacity combines rights and duties which require a certain age. To be construed as “minded” and to achieve the dispositive capacity a roman citizen had to become 18 years old.[1]

Under the ancient Roman law there has also existed a clear distinction between the status of a child and the status of an adult. Girls were considered as adult at the age of 12, boys were considered as adult at the age of 14.

The first remarkable minimum age is 7. At this age minors had absolutely no commercial rights or commercial duties, which mean contracts with them were absolutely invalid.[2] Minors under 7 were not held liable for their criminal acts, because in the ancient Rome you had to commit the crime with dolus (criminal intend). The general opinion was that minors under 7 were not capable of conceiving dolus, therefore they were not guilty of a crime.[3]

Between 7 and 14 for boys / 12 for girls the young adults could enter into contracts, but only those which were in favor of the young adult. After 14 or 12 (depending on the gender) roman citizens were considered as adults thus they have reached full dispositive capacity concerning contracts and commercial transactions at this age. [4] In addition to that, reaching the age of 12 meant for roman girls also gaining the possibility to marry, boys had to be at least 14[5], so that the marriage was construed as valid.[6]

When achieving the adulthood, thus the full citizenship, male citizen had the right to vote in roman assemblies, which was called “Jus suffragiorum”, as well as the “ius honorum” and the “ius commercii” which is referred to the right to stand for a civil or public office and the right to make legal contracts.

Furthermore to become a juror in court, next to the requirement of being a citizen of either Rome or the vicinity of Rome, a roman citizen had to be between the ages of 30 and 60[7].

b.) Juvenile Justice in the ancient Greece

In an Athenian household we find the kyrios, who is in general the adult husband/father of the family. The kyrios was legally responsible for his family members and the family members were highly dependent on the kyrios for all legal actions. [8]

A greek young man stood under the control of the kyrios until he was 18 years old whereas women stayed in the kyrios of their fathers until their marriage. Combined with the marriage was the woman’s entering into the new kyrios of her husband. The typical marital age for girls was around 14 years and to enter a valid contractual marriage agreement the groom had to be at least 17 years old.[9] Although it should be mentioned that most of the men were much older when entering a marriage.

One very important age mark for the male greek population was 18: at this age they were considered as a full adult greek citizen. This citizenship included the right to vote, the right to enter temples, the right to hold a public office, the right to own property, the right to serve on a jury (except the special courts like Ephetai, see below) as well as the right to speak in a law court and exercise legal remedies. Combined with these rights was also the duty to serve the military and to pay taxes. Every Athenian man between 18 and 60 had the duty to serve in the greek army when requested. [10]

The ancient Greek law provided two different courts, which were responsible for handling cases of homicide. One was called Areopagus, which took care of cases of intentional homicide. For the other cases there was the second court called Ephetai. This court consisted of 51 men which all had to be over 50 years old[11], whereas the Areopagus council could be composed over more than 500 male citizens over the age of 30.[12]

c.) Comparison

	Ancient Roman Law	Athenian Law
Construed as child	Under 7	Under 18
Capable for criminal acts	Above 7	-
Construed as minor (contractually capable)	12 (women)/ 14 (men)	-
Minimum age for marriage	12 (women)/ 14 (men)	Around 14 (women)/ minimum 17 (men)
Right to vote	14 (men)	18 (men)
army service	17 (men)	18 (men)
Public rights (becoming jury)	30-60	30-50 (early times, Solon Law: 18)[13]

What can be noticed is the difference in the marriage age regarding the groom. In Roman Law boys were allowed to marry 3 years earlier than the greek grooms. A possible explanation for this difference could be the following: in Athenian Law every man who is 17 or 18 years old and has his own family, becomes a kyrios himself, thus he is now responsible for his own family, in legal and financial issues, whereas in Roman Law the sons, even when already married, stayed in the patria potestas of their fathers until the fathers and grandfathers faded away, since the patria potestas continued as long as the father or the grandfather remained alive. Legally speaking is still the father of the groom responsible for the new family, because they are incorporated into his patria potestas. Therefore the reason why the Greece groom had to be at least 17 years old is that he had to have the full greek citizenship in order to be capable to legally care on his own for his family.

2.) Contemporary legal systems

a.) Juvenile Justice in Austria

Before starting to talk about the Juvenile Justice in Austria it should be defined which persons are considered as “juvenile”, “minors” and “child”.

Every person under 7 years is considered as a child, between 7 and 14 years a person is recognized as a “unmündiger Minderjährige” which is a minor underage person. Between 14 and 18 years everybody is construed as a “mündiger Minderjährige” which refers to a major, mature underage person. After reaching the 18^th birthday, everybody is seen as an adult before the law.

When becoming a major underage person the criminal responsibility and liability starts. That means before that time, a person, legally speaking referred to as a child, cannot be legally punished or taken into legal responsibility for its acts. Certainly if a child commits a punishable crime, parents will be taken into responsibility, if they breached their duty to obligatory parental supervision. Furthermore a person under 7 cannot enter any legal binding relation or contract, nether exclusively favorable nor disadvantaging ones.

After these legal stages the mature and major underage phase begins, wherein a person is responsible for its criminal acts. However to those juvenile delinquents the “Austrian Juvenile Court Law” is applied which contains lower and less strict fines. For instance the monetary penalty and prison sentences are reduced to the half compared to the adult fines. Furthermore in these juvenile cases complementary to the judges a so called “Jugendvertreter” (=Youth Representative) is consulted, which can be a teacher, juvenile psychologist or a person with a certain background and education, who is capable understanding the situation and surrounding of the young offender better. This youth-representative should help to give an insight in the juvenile’s environment, in such a way to enable the judge to make a just and adequate verdict. This supplemental and auxiliary representative is certainly not the defender of the juvenile delinquent but rather a “neutral” person who provides the judges with the insight knowledge this person has.

Additionally even after the 18^th birthday and before the 21^st birthday, when everyone is already deemed as an adult before the law, the young age of a person has to be taken into consideration by the judge, when convicting the young offender.

Austria’s juvenile justice is very influenced by the VOM (Victim- Offender Mediation) which was a common development all over Europe since the 1970ies. This idea has been brought forward mainly from juvenile court judges, public prosecutors and the Probation Service Association.

An important feature of the Austrian juvenile justice is the so called “außergerichtliche Tatausgleich”, which means an out-of-court-offence-compensation. [14]

Especially in the last year there were big political and public discussions about the juvenile court law in Austria, since there are no separate prisons for young offenders and several cases were discovered where young offenders were abused by adult offenders in the collective prisons. Because of these severe incidents and other reasons like reintegration, proceeding in education and psychological reasons such as the personal possibility to grow and develop its life without committing crimes in the future, it is now a lively discussion to ban the prison sentence for young offenders under 18 completely (except in the case of severe offenses like murder or manslaughter) and instead introduce the sentence of electronic tags combined with house detention (after an examination whether the home of the young offender is a good environment) or detention in a social community house (like a youth asylum). However, at the moment there are not any new law proposals or amendments in this area.

It is also necessary to look at the statistics about juvenile criminality to properly compare different systems. “Statistik Austria” provides many different statistics about varying sectors and very reliable data about criminality.

In the year 2012 4358 offenses were committed in total by juvenile offenders (between 14 -18 year old) and 2562 verdicts were announced against juvenile offenders. Thus 8,10 % of all offenses in Austria were committed through juvenile offenders and 6,92 % of all convicted persons were juvenile offenders.[15] Simultaneously the total youth quantity counted 1.705.025 under 19 year olds in 2012.[16] Thus 0,0256 % of the Austrian youth became a criminal delinquent in 2012.

b.) Juvenile Justice in California

Like in Austria, the Juvenile justice system in California tends more to the goal of treatment rehabilitation of the juvenile offender rather than solely punishment[17]. Furthermore there is also a special juvenile court for youth offenders, but a juvenile offender can also be taken to an adult court, depending on the severeness and grade of maliciousness.

Let’s take a sharp look on statistics. The annual report from 2005 provided by U.S. Department of Justice stated the following:

· About 45 % of all violent crimes were committed by individuals between the ages 15 through 29, despite representing only 21 % of the overall population[18].

· Individuals between the ages 12 to 24 are those most likely to commit violent crimes and at the same time were also most likely to be the victims of violent crime. The chances of becoming a victim of violent crime were significantly lower for all other age groups[19].

· As we can see in the following graphic, most of the juvenile crimes occur between the ages of 15 and 17 (71%) in California.

· In total the Californian Youth Population held 4.493.439 and 222.512 were arrested because of a criminal offense. Thus 0,0495 % of the whole Californian youth was committing a crime.

Juvenile Arrests by Gender, Race, and Age[20]
2005
	Juvenile Arrests	California Youth Population
Totals	222,512	4,493,439
Male	74%	51%
Female	26%	49%
Black	17%	8%
Hispanic	48%	46%
White	28%	33%
Other	7%	14%
Ages 10‑11	2%	24%
Ages 12‑14	27%	38%
Ages 15‑17	71%	38%

c.) Comparison between the systems

Certain rights are only given to adults, since the society believes that certain activities, such as marriage, should only be allowed to adults because you need a certain capacity of discernment. Thus I want to examine age limitations for the right to marry, right to work, right or duty to join the army, right to vote, right to purchase certain products, such as liquors, right to get a driver’s license and the minimal age to achieve jury rights in trial, because these rights are often connected and construed as the rights for becoming and being an adult. Everyone who has not reached these age limits can be seen as a non-adult, because one is not allowed to do certain things such as driving a car or purchasing certain products. Thus a comparison between the abovementioned and discussed legal systems concerning their age restrictions seems adequate and interesting.

This table of the age-limits[21] will support us to get a good overview over some interesting age restrictions and subsequently it helps us to make a more extensive and global comparison.

“Right to work” is referring to the very first age, when young adults can land their first jobs. I have always chosen the very first age, where it is legally allowed to get a job, even if it is combined with restrictions, because it shows how the society assigns the first legal rights to a young person.

Furthermore the “age of consent” also needs a further definition in this context. The age of consent “refers to the age at which a person is held to have the capacity to voluntarily agree to sexual intercourse”.[22]

One note to the following table is that Canada, New Zealand and England were taken as a further exemplification and for a more global and broad comparison. This paper will not govern further detail of these legal systems.

	Austria	U.S.[23]	Canada[24]	New Zealand[25]	England [26]
Right to work	15	14 child work permit/ 16 “as an adult” [27]	12 with permit from “Employment standards and parent/ 15 without a permit but with restrictions	14 child work permit / 16 full time work	16
Right/duty to join army	After finishing legal mandatory education, at the earliest: 18	17 with parental consent / 18 without consent	17 with parental consent/ 18 without consent	17 without parental consent	16 with parental consent/ 18 without
Age of consent	14	18[28]	16	16	17
Right to marry	14 with parental consent / 18 without parental consent	16	16 with parental consent / 18 without parental consent	16 with parental consent/ 18 without parental consent	16 with parental consent/ 18 without parental consent
Right to vote	16	18	18	18	18
Right to purchase liquor	16 (beer/wine) 18 (strong liquor)	21	18/19 depends on the state	18	16/18
Driver’s license	17 with parent 18 without parent	16	16	16	17
Minimum age for jury call	25-65[29]	18	18	18	18
Ages of criminal responsibility	14	7 / 14 transferred to criminal court	14	10/12/14	10

Many of these age limitations are similar in comparison to other legal systems, examples for great similarity are the age limits for applying for the driver’s license (16-17) and the right or duty to join the army (17-18). What can be said after looking at these numbers is that Austria provides more often divergences to the other legal systems.

On the one hand we find here a European country whereas the other countries are part of other continents, thus they share a different history and development of their legal systems. Additionally can be said that the U.S. legal system contains two for me striking age restrictions: first the (or rather no) age limit for criminal responsibility and on the other side the highest age limit in purchasing certain products like liquors (although arms can even be purchased earlier, but that is another discussion) not before the 21^st birthday.

In addition to that the fact that the age limits for public duties and personal rights can be very differing when it comes to Austria and U.S.: age limits concerning public duties and responsibilities are rather low in the U.S.A. (minimum jury age 18) and rather high concerning personal rights and freedom like purchasing e.g. liquor (minimum age 21) or the age of legal consent (18) whereas in Austria it is exactly contrariwise: personal rights are already transferred and given at a younger age, see the age for buying liquor (16) or the age of legal consent (14) but when it comes to public rights and responsibilities such as the duty for a call to a jury member in court the age is in comparison the other countries quite high (25).

Furthermore worth emphasizing is the very differing age for the full criminal responsibility for youth offenders. Also within Europe there is a large difference from 10 (England) to 14 (Austria). What is striking me here in general, that certain legal systems provide the full criminal responsibility even under the age of 14, but on the other hand, these systems do not give children the full responsibility in any other legal areas. Thus it appears to be a certain legal unbalance, since juveniles get a lot of responsibility at a very early stage of their life, but are not awarded with rights simultaneously. Whereas we can see on the Austrian example that the age limits combined with its duties and rights are more balanced: certain privileges and rights are awarded at the same time together: like the legal responsibility for criminal acts at 14 and at the same time the 14 year olds have the right of consent and the right to marry (with parental consent) and certain contractual rights.

Furthermore the criminal rates should be considered in this aspect too. Referring to the numbers above in chapter 2a.) and 2b.) 0,049% of the Californian youth committed a crime whereas in Austria only 0,0256% of the Austrian youth did so. Thus in fact, after looking and interpreting these numbers, California’s youth is nearly twice (1,96 x) as active in committing criminal offenses than Austrian’s youth. One explanation why the criminal rate is twice as high in California can be on the one hand since under fourteen year olds are not measured in the data of Austrians youth offenders, because they are not legally responsible for their offenses. When looking on other statistics of criminal acts, many show that most of the crimes are committed in urban areas, where there are definitely more urban areas in California than in Austria, where actually only one big city (Vienna) exists and surprisingly all other 8 capital cities are homes for a maximum of 250.000 people[30]. So maybe the higher urbanization in California, as well as a completely different social system and demographic mixture of the society could also be a possible explanation for that higher criminal youth rate in California.

3.) Other legal systems

a.) Shari’a- Islamic Law

Many different prejudices exist against the Islamic Law, thus it is very interesting to actually examine the Shari’a, which is known as the source of Islamic law, for age limits, duties and rights of minors.

A very well known story which is simultaneously maybe the most striking one about the muslim prophet Muhammad is the story about one of his wives. Historians are not completely united about the number of Muhammad’s wives, but the general opinion is that he had in total 11 wives. His third wife called Aisha bint Abu Bakr, which was pursuant to many historians his most favorite wife, was only 9 years old by the time of the consummation of the marriage[31]. This story is conspicuous to us in that aspect, that we, with our “modern conception of law” see this marriage as invalid and furthermore as pedophilia. Thus we should take a look how these aspects are generally governed by the Shari’a.

In general it has to be distinguished between a typical marriage contract in our legal system and in the Shari’a. In the Shari’a the marriage contract concludes the bridegroom and the legal guardian of the bride.[32]

This legal guardianship is a very important aspect of the Islamic law. A woman has a legal guard throughout her whole life, a man until he is regarded as an adult. The legal guard, who is called a “wali” is in general the nearest male relative, thus for a woman it is typically her father and after her marriage it is her husband.[33]

Under the Islamic Law there is also a distinction made between minors and adults. Minors are all children before the age of puberty. Thus for a women it is clearly before she has had her first menstrual cycle.[34]

The legal guard also exists for male minors and like for the female muslims, the wakil coordinates all legal affairs for the minors. Included is also marriage. Thus over minors can be made and arranged a marriage contract, but theoretically “when the bride is of age [..], she has the final say about entrance into a marriage contract”[35], but the way she could exercise this right of rescission is through a divorce procedure[36].

But in fact when we take a look at the under mentioned table of the average age of first marriage we can clearly see, that generally speaking the age of entering a marriage is higher than the age of puberty, but still in certain countries the marital age is quite young.

Both images are taken from Raj Bhala, “Understanding Islamic Law”, p.424.

b.) Gypsy Law

An important fact about the Gypsy Law which someone has to know before reading the following chapter is the idea of pollution, which is called “marime” in their language. Marime has a very powerful meaning: first it refers to pollution itself (like parts of the lower body) and furthermore it governs also the sentence for a violation of purity rules and also social rules (for instance after committing a crime, this person is polluted)[37].

So the first age mark is already a very early one in the Gypsy Law: Babies are considered as marime within the first 6 weeks after the birth. After that period they are holding a very privileged status within the gypsy society. When reaching the puberty they can be again polluted, especially girls when they have their menstruation circle; but when entering the menopause, women can reach the stage of impurity again.[38]

Marriage in gypsy law happens to be also regarded as at a very young age, based on our reception of a marriage. In the older traditions marriages occurred after the age of nine, but usually before the age of fourteen.[39] There are several differences between the geographical widespread gypsy communities, for example gypsy communities have risen their marital age onto 18 years, and among the Spain gypsy men are usually between 17 and 22 whereas female gypsis marry between 15 and 17 years[40].

An explanation for the early marital age could be the fact that an unmarried gypsy has no real social life in the community of gypsies. For instance, unmarried men are not even allowed to attend the kris, which will be explained below, unless he is a witness[41].

Age also plays an important role in the gypsy courts, called “kris”. Is the victim either “old, sick, or very young, the victims nearest male relative brings the case to the kris”.[42]

c.) T’ang Code- Chinese law

The reason why I included this legal system was not only because it is regarded as very different from our legal system, but because it is with his numerous stories and descriptions sort of very amusing.

First of all the death sentence for severe offenses is also known to the Chinese Legal System, but article 30 of the T’ang Code states that to under 7-year old delinquents the death sentence is not applicable. In the case of a 15-year old or younger person who committed robbery or wounded someone could redeem his/her punishment. Other crimes were not even prosecuted. 17-year olds or younger had the possibility to redeem all their punishments like life exile or less, besides the sentence for very serious crimes.[43]

To convict a person of such young age three witnesses were required and furthermore those young offenders could not be tortured for getting a confession.[44]

Similar to the Roman and Athenian Law marriages were also used as to combine and strengthen family units and mainly derives from financial and/or agrarian motivation. Therefore we mainly find arranged marriages in this legal system.[45]

We cannot find a certain marital age of the groom and the bride; mainly the groom was slightly older than the bride. Different sources classified the ideal age for the bride was twenty and for grooms thirty.[46] However in practice there is evidence for child marriage. There is also on official case where “one imperial decree ordered unmarried women to pay five times the normal poll tax beginning at age fifteen”[47]. This can be interpreted as an official motivation and encouragement to marry before this ideal marital age.

Conclusion

Finally it can be said that the roles of a family changed a lot in our systems, which leaded to a higher marital age and therefore to a change of the role of age in society too. When we compare our two contemporary legal systems to all the others we see that our systems are the most dissenting ones because of our higher marital age. This can be maybe explained because of the role of the family nowadays. Every family is more or less independent therefore parents try first to have a stable job, a good education and enough money to support their own families. This is similar to the comparison between the marital age of the grooms in Roman and the Athenian system.

Another reason for a higher martial age and family building is possibly the change of the purpose of a marriage. In the past, financial and existence securing matters/factors were the main reasons for a marriage. These matters step back increasingly today. Therefore the relationship as such between the partners gets more and more important. Only if one has found a suitable partner and the relationship proofed itself as worth it, a marriage will take place.

However also parts within gypsy society, in imperial China and Muslim society show some similarities, like the comparably low marital age and the dependency on an institution like a guard.

Additionally an interesting result regarding all these tables above is that different societies construe different ages as capable of doing certain more or less important legal acts. Thus it is obvious now that the age, when a society hands over responsibility is not always the same age when individuals gain rights; what can be recognized after all these numbers is that societies tend to transfer more duties at a early age, than they transfer rights. A possible explanation for this phenomenon is that in many societies the behavior of minors will be attributed to the family itself, thus the parents are responsible for educating their children in a way they will not break the law, because otherwise the parents themselves can be taken into legal responsibility as well. Thus societies in fact hand over the criminal education to each family.

Finally it is very interesting to point out that in many systems the Roman law as well as the Athenian law still remains in certain aspects of the law. For instance in the Austrian system the steps from 7 to 14, from 14 to 18 and above are exactly the same as in the ancient Rome. Furthermore also the voting age and the age for joining the army in the U.S.A. can be seen as a similarity to the ancient Athenian Law system, as well as the criminal responsibility beginning with the age of 7 shows a great similarity with the ancient Roman law.

References

- Anna Mestitz/ Simona Ghetti, “Victim-Offender Mediation with Youth Offenders in Europe- an overview and comparison of 15 countries”, Springer, 2005, Dordrecht

- Russ VerSteeg “The Essentials of Greek and Roman Law” , Carolina Academic Press, 2010, Durham

- Walter O. Weyrauch, “Gypsy Law- Romani Legal Traditions and Culture”, University of California Press, 2001, Berkeley and Los Angeles

- Raj Bhala, “Understanding Islamic Law”, Lexis Nexis, 2011, Kansas

- Bret Hinsch, „Women in early imperial China“; 2nd edition; Rowman&Littlefield Publishers, Plymouth 2011

Articles:

- John Gillen, The Age of Criminal Responsibility: “The Frontier between Care and Justice” in “Child Care in Practice”, Vol. 12, no. 2, April 2006, pp.129-139

Homepages:

- http://www.ris.bka.gv.at/GeltendeFassung.wxe?Abfrage=Bundesnormen&Gesetzesnummer=10002954 accessed 10/19/2013

- http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/socrates/greekcrimpro.html accessed 10/28/2013

- http://definitions.uslegal.com/a/age-of-consent/ accessed 10/29/2013

- http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_St%C3%A4dte_in_%C3%96sterreich accessed 10/31/2013

- http://www.lao.ca.gov/2007/cj_primer/cj_primer_013107.aspx#chapter5/ accessed on 10/31/2013

- http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/youthlabor/agerequirements.htm accessed on 10/15/2013

- http://www.jfcy.org/PDFs/AgeBasedLawsJune2012.pdf accessed 10/15/2013

- http://www.cab.org.nz/vat/gl/roi/Pages/LegalagesandID.aspx accessed 10/15/2013

- http://www.statistik.at/web_de/statistiken/bevoelkerung/bevoelkerungsstruktur/bevoelkerung_nach_alter_geschlecht/023458.html accessed on 31/10/2013

- http://www.statistik.at/web_de/statistiken/soziales/kriminalitaet/verurteilungen_gerichtliche_kriminalstatistik/index.html accessed on 10/31/2013

- http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/socrates/greekcrimpro.html accessed 10/29/2013

[1] Russ VerSteeg, “The Essentials of Greek and Roman Law”, P. 140.

[3] Russ VerSteeg, „The Essentials of Greek and Roman Law“ p. 189.

[5] Another theory was the Sabinian view, which claimed that the boy had to have reached the puberty already before entering a valid marriage; before the marriage, the boy was examined for the proof of reaching the puberty.

[6] Rss VerSteeg, “The Essentials of Greek and Roman Law”, P. 165

[7] Russ VerSteeg, “The Essentials of Greek and Roman Law”, P.128.

[13] Under Solon’s law all male Athenian citizen over 18 had the right to become a jury member, which were called the Ekklesia; what this means is obvious: it became such a big political body which was not able to work properly in this composition. Thus in Athen started in the Middle of the 5^th century B.C. the representative jury system. To become a Jury member now, the requirements were following: one had to be at least 30 years old and a male Athenian citizen. The jury was composed of 500 members. (see supra note, p. 27) In our juridical understanding this number still seems unbelievably high; the historical reason behind that was the prevention of bribe: who could afford to bribe 500 jury members?

[14] Anna Mestitz/ Simona Ghetti“Victim-Offender Mediation with Youth Offenders in Europe” Page 159

[21] when the legal subjects have attained this certain age.

[23] If it is a law which is made at a state level (like the age of consent) then I am always referring to Californian Law

[26] John Gillen, “The Frontier between Care and Justice” in “Child Care in Practice”, p.135

[28] CA Penal Code Section 261.5, retrieved 10/15/2013

[31] Raj Bhala, „Understanding Islamic Law“, p. 58

[32] Raj Bhala, „Understanding Islamic Law“, p. 867

[33] Raj Bhala, „Understanding Islamic Law“, p. 872

[34] Raj Bhala, „Understanding Islamic Law“, p.872

[35] Raj Bhala, „Understanding Islamic Law“, p. 872

[36] Raj Bhala, „Understanding Islamic Law“, p. 873

[37] Compare with Walter O. Weyrauch, “Gypsy Law- Romani Legal Traditions and Culture”, p. 30

[38] Walter O. Weyrauch, „Gypsy Law- Romani Traditions and Culture“, P. 31

[39] Walter O. Weyrauch, „Gypsy Law- Romani Traditions and Culture“, p. 35

[45] Bret Hinsch, „Women in early imperial China“; P.143