Coming-of-Age Rites
How the world celebratesLegal adulthood and a coming-of-age ceremony are not the same line.
Quick answers
| Place | When is it? | How the date is set |
|---|---|---|
| United States | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
| Brazil | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
| China | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
| Indonesia | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
| India | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
| Japan | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
| Taiwan | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
🗳️ What about you?
Asked by the 🇺🇸 English community
For the 🇹🇼 中文(台灣) community
Is there a rite where you live that says someone has grown up? At what age?
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How the world celebrates
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
How is it done in Brazil?
Brazil's Civil Code says it in Article 5: minority ends at eighteen completed years, at which point the person becomes able to perform all acts of civil life. The article then lists the ways full capacity can be reached earlier — parental grant, marriage, holding public office, economic self-sufficiency and others. So Brazil has both a clear line and several doors that open before it: adulthood can be brought forward by circumstances of life. Voting is optional from sixteen and compulsory from eighteen, so adulthood opens here in stages as well.
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
How is it done in China?
China's Civil Code puts it in one short article. Article 17: a natural person aged eighteen or over is an adult; a natural person under eighteen is a minor. There is no national coming-of-age rite or holiday. Adulthood is the boundary of civil capacity, and it falls on a birthday rather than on a shared date. Schools may hold an eighteenth-birthday ceremony, but that is a school event, not an institutional arrangement. Even after eighteen, marriage waits until twenty-two for men or twenty for women, leaving several years between the two lines.
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
How is it done in Indonesia?
Indonesia defines a child as someone who has not yet turned eighteen, and that line is the base of its child-protection framework; the whole policy apparatus of the Ministry of Women's Empowerment and Child Protection is built on it. But the marker people actually feel comes earlier: at seventeen you obtain the national identity card, and seventeen is also the voting age. So adulthood in Indonesia has two steps — identity and a ballot at seventeen, leaving the legal definition of a child at eighteen. From seventeen the photograph and address on the identity card travel with the person, and the card itself becomes the first proof of being grown.
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
How is it done in India?
India's age of majority is set at eighteen by the Majority Act of 1875 — the oldest of the seven statutes on this page, and one that has not moved since. It runs alongside each community's own coming-of-age rites: different religions and regions mark the passage with their own ceremonies and their own ages, but in law none of them shift the boundary of legal capacity. So adulthood in India has two layers at once — one nationally uniform and very old, one community-specific and very varied. The voting age matches the age of majority at eighteen, but the marriage age differs by gender, so the three lines do not coincide.
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
How is it done in Japan?
Japan lowered the civil-law age of majority from twenty to eighteen on 1 April 2022. The Ministry of Justice notes it was the first such change in about 140 years, since an 1876 Grand Council proclamation. Eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds can now open a phone account, rent a flat, get a credit card or take out a car loan without a parent's consent. The same amendment raised the minimum marriage age for women to eighteen, matching men. Yet Coming-of-Age Day — the national holiday on the second Monday of January — is still held for twenty-year-olds in many places: legal adulthood and ceremonial adulthood have come apart. The scale of the coming-of-age ceremony is decided by each municipality, it is usually held on the January holiday, and travelling home to attend is common.
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
How is it done in Taiwan?
Taiwan lowered the age of majority in an amendment promulgated on 13 January 2021 and in force from 1 January 2023: Article 12 of the Civil Code now reads that a person reaches majority at eighteen, down from twenty. The same amendment set the engagement age at seventeen and the marriage age at eighteen for everyone, ending the difference between men and women. From eighteen, signing a contract, renting a flat or opening a phone account no longer needs a legal representative's consent — adulthood here is a specific bundle of legal capacity, not a ceremony. Other age thresholds remain after majority: the driving licence, the vote and military service each carry their own age and do not open together.
- Date to be confirmedLocal date
How is it done in United States?
Adulthood in the United States is scattered across ages. The vote was fixed at eighteen by the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, ratified on 1 July 1971, driven by the slogan 'old enough to fight, old enough to vote' — the draft age during the Vietnam War was eighteen. Other rights carry their own ages and their own state-by-state rules, so 'how old is an adult' has no single answer in the United States; it depends on whether you are asking about voting, contracting, driving or drinking. There is no national coming-of-age ceremony. Because the ages are scattered, the American question tends to be 'adult for what', rather than 'adult at what age'.
Sources and dates
Dates follow local time zones, calendars, and official notices. Check the source when a date is estimated or locally variable.