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| Bathurst Island circa 1938 |
Every person has many roles in the community where they live. Previously I discussed how gender plays into the roles, how they are assigned, and how they are viewed by others. One of the items noted then was that roles also have many other influences besides gender. In this article I am looking at one of the other factors, age.
Gender and age roles are usually connected. One of the major connections are rites of passage which define how children become adults. Historically these rites have been divided between the sexes. Adult roles and even elder roles were almost always segregated by sex. Even though the connection is strong between the two elements within most cultures there are some major areas which can be seen as particular to age.
As before, I am not going to deal with the levels of complexity that can arise in these discussions. For example, in today's current social structure it could be argued, and some do, that there are many levels of individual development over the course of a person's life. We could be looking at the stages of infancy, toddlers, childhood, pre-teenagers, teenagers, young adult, adult, middle-age, elderly, and others that fit into these grouping in different ways depending on how you want to define them. Here I am going to break it down into three basic ones: childhood, adulthood, and elderly. When working on your creations you may want more to define your community. A general consideration is, the more advanced the society becomes the more complex the structure age we like to put in place.
Childhood has been changed in definition throughout time. Childhood has a basic definition (I mean basic) of the period of life that a child is dependent on adults for their survival. This includes infancy and continues until the child is claimed to be an adult. The period of time considered to be the period of childhood has been fluid.
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| Wyatt Earp |
It is assumed that in times before recorded history childhood was a short period of time because life was short and needs were high. The argument is that a person needed to be able to quickly provide for their own needs. As time advances, and the complexity of the society grows the determination of when a child becomes an adult changed.
My grandmother graduated from high school, was married, and had her first child when she was sixteen. This was in the United States in the early 1900s. At that time she was considered an adult. By today's standard she would still be considered a child by many. In early societies waiting until she was sixteen would have meant she was an old maid and may not have been eligible to ever get married.
The point is how you choose to define childhood in the society you are creating will create a system of expectations. There is also the consideration of what requirements are specified for a child to move into adulthood.
Adulthood in most societies has been broadly defined as the period of life when a person is a contributing part. What they contribute is almost always included as part of the reasoning of being considered an adult. It may have been considered an adult if you were able to provide food, clothing, shelter. In could also be considered when you are capable of having children to maintain the population of the community. Some may have been considered adults because they were large enough to help defend against an outside danger. No matter the context of what the person provides, being able to provide has usually been a part of being an adult. But definitions change over time as has already been pointed out.
In our modern society a major shift in defining adulthood has been the person's physical age. This is in part because of better record keeping, the general growth of the population, and the ability to over produce. We use terms all the time of how a person is acting childish. What we are usually talking about is a behavior which is seen as being unproductive in some manner. As long as a person remained productive they are considered to be acting like an adult.
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| From longevitynetwork.org |
The next transition tied closely with age is moving into the ranks of the elderly. There becomes a defining moment when a person moves from the ranks of the active adult providing for the community, family, etc. and is allowed to once again be taken care of by the community or family. The individual is allowed to become an advisor or teacher to his family or community. Sometimes an elderly person was cared for by family and friend until a natural death claimed them. However, this is not always the case.
There have been, or are, societies where the elderly are allowed to "take the long walk" before they become a burden on the community. These are different aspects based on considerations with how well a community can take care of themselves and their ability to create a surplus.
These concepts should be part of the process of developing the structure of your society. Each stage of life has specific aspects that develop in a society and as a person creating a community or society you should look at providing some context for the different age groups.
The main area I like to jot down notes on are the considerations of restrictions and benefits. Determining what each of the main age groups is allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do provides social structure to how the groups interact within their age group and between groups. Many times the restrictions of one group are benefits allowed to another group which also defines how the different ages interact. These are not just physical activity either, expectations of mental activity is a major factor used.
Again, like before, these are basic areas presented. Your society will have different levels of complexity, and even the areas of a larger society will be broken down into smaller community based demographics. I like to throw in aspects of a new community that my players are not familiar with, either by taking something from a society they are unfamiliar with or by creating a new standard. In gaming a good example of this was how the drow culture was developed in Dungeons and Dragons.
If you have a comment, suggestion, or critique please leave a comment here or send an email to guildmastergaming@gmail.com.
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