The Age of Accountability in Antiquity

To Latter-day Saints, age eight is when we become accountable for our behavior. It is interesting to note that research indicates that from early history the approximate age of seven was commonly accepted as the age of responsibility and accountability.

Under Roman law, a child under the age of seven was not considered to have developed sufficient discretion or judgment to be responsible for his actions.

That Roman law and most of Rome’s paternal customs were undoubtedly influenced by Greek and Spartan paternal customs. Under Roman law, “minors” were divided into three classes: infants; impubes, those prior to puberty; and upberes, those after puberty. Infants were those under the age of seven, and impubes were those from age seven to puberty. Under the law all those who had not reached puberty were subject to guardianship laws.

Infants and insane persons were considered “without intelligence” and could not act for themselves. Their “tutor” or guardian acted for them.

After age seven, each child was granted full legal rights. He was then considered to have intelligence, even though it was not mature judgment. He could perform legal acts on his own, unless his guardian demonstrated that an action was not in his best interest.

The laws, as recorded by both Justinian and Gaius, demonstrate the evolution of Roman law into the great civilizing force that it became, and one constant was the attitude toward children and the age of accountability.

Roman and Greek laws regarding infants affected the laws of most, if not all, countries, that eventually came under Roman influence; this involved most of the countries of Europe.

More than 2,000 years after the early Greeks and Romans, the Lord revealed that age eight, and not seven or nine, was the proper age of accountability.