By the law of England full age is twenty-one, and all minors alike are subject to incapacities. The period of twenty-one years is regarded as complete at the beginning of the day before the birthday: for example, an infant born on the first day of January attains his majority at the first moment of the 31st of December. The incapacity of an infant is designed of course for his own protection, and its general effect is to prevent him from binding himself absolutely by obligations. In the matter of contracts, the statement has generally passed current that an infant’s contracts, except when they are binding for special reasons, are either void or voidable, i.e., null, ab initio, or capable of being nullified by the infant at his choice. Contracts, for example, which cannot be beneficial to the infant are said to be absolutely void. A bond with a penalty is for this reason declared to bo void. On the other hand, it is alleged by the more recent text-writers that the words void and voidable have not been carefully distinguished, and that a contract is often described as void when it is only meant that it is not binding. On this theory all the contracts of an infant might bo described as voidable at his option except those few which are absolutely valid. On his voidable contracts an infant may sue if he chooses to do so, but may not be sued. Of the contracts of an infant which are binding ab initio, the most important are those relating to “necessaries.” The word is used in an extended signification to cover “articles fit to maintain the person in the particular state, degree, and station in life in which he is.” Whether a particular thing is necessary or not is a question of fact to be decided by a jury, but it is for the judge to say whether it is prima facie of a description such that it may be a necessary. It has been ruled by judges, without consulting the jury, that the following articles were not necessary :—expensive dinners supplied to an undergraduate in his private rooms; a pair of solitaire studs costing .£25, and a goblet costing £15, for a baronet’s son; a chronometer worth £68, for a lieutenant in the navy; ornaments to the value of £137. On the other hand, an undergraduate has been allowed a gold watch as a necessary; and liveries for an officer’s servant, money paid to release an infant from ejectment or distress, and necessaries for an infant’s wife have all been held to be necessaries of an infant. An object, in itself of a character to be pronounced a necessary, may in particular cases be declared not necessary, e.g., if the infant is already supplied with things of the kind. A sealskin waistcoat may be a necessary to an infant of good fortune, but not if he has half a dozen such garments in his possession already. The person who supplies goods prima facie necessary to an infant must, it would seem, take the risk of their turning out to be unnecessary. An infant fraudulently passing himself off as of full age and contracting on that footing will be held bound in equity. The protection of infants extends sometimes to transactions completed after full age: the relief of heirs who have been induced to barter away their expectations is an example. “Catching bargains,” as they are called, throw on the persons claiming the benefit of them the burden of proving their substantial righteousness; and, although the youth of the party charged is not an essential point, it is generally one of the facts relied on as showing undue influence.

At common law a bargain made by an infant might be ratified by him after full age, and would then become in all respects binding. Lord Tenterden’s Act required the ratification to be in writing. But now by the Infants Relief Act, 1874, “all contracts entered into by infants for the repayment of money lent or to be lent, or for goods supplied or to be supplied (other than contracts for necessaries), and all accounts stated, shall be absolutely void,” and “no action shall be brought whereby to charge any person upon any promise made after full age to pay any debt contracted during infancy, or upon any ratification made after full age of any promise or contract made during infancy, whether there shall or shall not be any new consideration for such promise or ratification after full age.” It has been held in a recent case that this action applies to promises of marriage, so that where an infant had promised marriage, and after attaining full age continued to recognize the promise, no action arose on the breach. But an actual contract of marriage may be lawfully made by persons under age. Marriageable age is fourteen in males and twelve in females. So, generally, an infant may bind himself by contract of apprenticeship or service. Since the passing of the Wills Act, an infant is unable to make a will. Infancy is in general a disqualification for public offices and professions, e.y., to be a member of parliament or an elector, a mayor or burgess, a priest or deacon, a barrister or solicitor, &c.

The custody of an infant belongs in the first place, and against all other persons, to the father, who is said to be “the guardian of his children by nature and nurture and the father may by deed or will dispose of the custody or tuition of his children until the age of twentyωne. If the father is dead, and has appointed no testamentary guardian, themotheris recognized as “guardian by nature andnurture.” But the children must be brought up in the father’s religion, even when he has given no directions on the subject; and it appears that no agreement between husband and wife to the contrary effect will be sustained. When, however, the father has in his lifetime suffered the children to be educated in their mother’s religion, he may be held to have waived his rights. The Court of Chancery is unwilling to embarrass itself by departing from the strict rule, and an instance is recorded of a child which had been educated from eight to fifteen in the tenets of the Plymouth Brethren being ordered by the court to be educated in the religion of the Church of England. The right of the father to the custody of the child will be enforced, except where he has been guilty of gross immorality, by writ of habeas corpus, as long as a child is within the age of nurture, which for males at least may be taken to be fourteen years. The infant then acquires a right of election. In two cases a boy over fourteen but under sixteen has been permitted by the court to choose, when the father had sued for the custody under a habeas corpus. In the case of female infants, the courts have held that they do not acquire the right of election till sixteen, following the statute of Philip & Mary which punishes the abduction of maidens under that age as a criminal offence. These rules do not apply to illegitimate children, as they are not under the legal guardianship of the putative father or the mother. The rights of the father or mother may be interfered with by the Court of Chancery under special circumstances, such as cruelty, immorality, &c. A recent Act (36 & 37 Viet, c. 12) gives power to the court to make orders for the mother of an infant under sixteen, to have or retain the custody of such infant, or to have access thereto, <fcc. The same statute legalizes agreements by the father to give up the custody and control of children to the wife. The Divorce Court has also very extensive powers of regulating the custody and maintenance of children, in exercising which it observes the same limits of age as the courts of law and chancery.

There is not at common law any corresponding obligation on the part of either parent to maintain or educate the children. The legal duties of parents in this respect are only those created by the poor laws and the Elementary Education Act. In the case, however, of debts contracted by a child for necessaries, the authority of the father would, to use a common phrase, be “easily implied.”

Besides the natural guardianship of parents, children may in various other ways come under the authority of guardians. A recent author gives the following as a complete list of guardians :—guardian in chivalry, in socage, in nature, by nurture, by election of the infant, by statute (4 Philip & Mary c. 8, 12 Chas. II. c. 24), by custom, by appointment of the ecclesiastical courts and of the Court of Chancery, foreign guardians, and guardians ad litem (Simpson’s Law of Infants, London, 1875). Some of these have already been noticed, and others are obsolete or nearly so. The Act of Chas. II. enables the father to appoint a testamentary guardian to his children during infancy or any less period, who shall have the charge of the infant’s real and personal estate. The Act is not to prejudice any customary guardianship, such as that of the City of London, where, according to ancient but now disused custom, the goods and lands of the orphans of freemen are in the custody of the lord mayor and aidermen in their court of orphans. By the custom of Kent, and by the special customs of certain manors, the lord has the right of appointing guardians to infant tenants. Guardianship by socage extends only to lands of socage tenure, and belongs to the next of blood of the infant, other than those who might succeed to the estate when the infant dies. It ends when the infant reaches the age of fourteen; after that age, or before if there was no guardian, infants were formerly allowed to elect a guardian, but that practice is now superseded by the action of the Court of Chancery which appoints guardians in all cases where it is for the benefit of the infants to do so. An infant under a guardian appointed by the Court of Chancery is properly a “ward of court,” but the term is also applied to infants brought under the authority of the court although no guardian be appointed. The office and duty of the guardian extend to the custody and control of the infant, to his education, maintenance, and advancement out of any property that may be available therefor, and to the prevention of improper and disparaging marriages. The office of guardian is strictly a trust, the ordinary duties and responsibilities of a trustee with respect to property being accompanied by peculiar rights and duties with respect to the person of the cestui que trust. He must act in all cases for the benefit of the infant, and may not put himself into any position in which his interest would be hostile to that of the infant. The Court of Chancery has full jurisdiction over guardians of every kind, whether appointed by itself or not, and if it cannot actually dismiss a testamentary guardian, it may supersede him and entrust the charge of the infant to some other person on proper cause being shown (see Trustee).

An infant is liable to a civil action for torts and wrongful acts committed by him. But, as it is possible sometimes so to shape the pleadings in an action as to make what is in substance a right arising out of contract take the form of a right arising from civil injury, care is taken that an infant in such a case shall not be held liable. With respect to crime, mere infancy is not a defence, but a child under seven years of age is presumed to be incapable of committing a crime, and between seven and fourteen his capacity requires to be affirmatively proved. After fourteen an infant is doli capax.

The law of Scotland follows the leading principles of the Roman law. The period of minority (which ends at twenty-one) is divided into two stages, that of absolute incapacity (until the age of fourteen in males, and twelve in females), during which the minor is in pupilarity, and that of partial incapacity (between fourteen and twenty-one), during which he is under curators. The guardians (or tutors) of the pupil are either tutors-nominate (appointed by the father in his will); tutors-at-law (being the next male agnate of twenty-five years of age), in default of tutors-nominate; or tutors-dative, appointed by royal warrant in default of the other two. No act done by the pupil, or action raised in his name, has any effect without the interposition of a guardian. After fourteen, all acts done by a minor having curators are void without their concurrence. Every deed in nonage, whether during pupilarity or minority, and whether authorized or not by tutors or curators, is liable to reduction on proof of “lesion,” i.e., of material injury, due to the fact of nonage, either through the weakness of the minor himself or the imprudence or negligence of his curators. Damage in fact arising on a contract in itself just and reasonable would not be lesion entitling to restitution. Deeds in nonage, other than those whi<⅛h are absolutely null ab initio, must be challenged within the gιiad∙ riennium utile, or four years after majority.

In the United States, the principles of the English common law as to infancy prevail, generally the most conspicuous variations being those affecting the age at which women attain majority. In many States this is fixed at eighteen. There is some diversity of practice as to the age at which a person can make a will of real or personal estate. (E. R. )

More complex were the leading forms of infanticide in India, now suppressed by the wise action of the British Government. The practice, though forbidden by both the Vedas and the Koran, prevailed among the Râjputs and certain of the aboriginal tribes. Among the aristocratic Râjputs, for example, it was thought dishonourable that a girl should remain unmarried. Moreover, a girl may not marry below her caste; she ought to marry her superior, or· at least her equal. This reasoning was obviously most powerful with the highest castes, in which, accordingly, the disproportion of the sexes was painfully apparent. But, assuming marriage to be possible, it is ruinously expensive to the bride’s father. He has to make gifts of money, clothes, jewels, and sweetmeats to the bridegroom’s relatives: and when the marriage ceremony comes, he has, chiefly owing to the exactions of the BrΛhmans and Bhats or minstrels, to face a lavish expenditure on feasts which in the case of some râjàs has been known to reach more than £100,000. To avoid all this, the R<4jput killed a certain proportion of his daughters,—sometimes in a very singular way. A pill of tobacco and bhang might be given to the newborn child to swallow; or it was drowned in milk; or the mother’s breast was smeared with opium or the juice of the poisonous Datura. A common form was to cover the child’s mouth with a plaster of cow-dung before it drew breath. Infanticide was also practised to a small extent by some sects of the aboriginal Kandhs, and by the poorer hill tribes of the Himalayas. Where infanticide occurs in India, though it really rests on the economic facts stated, there is usually some poetical tradition of its origin. The measures against the practice were begun towards the end of the 18th century by Jonathan Duncan and Major Walker. They were continued by a series of able and earnest officers during the present century. One of its chief events, representing many minor events, was the Umritsur durbar of 1853, which was arranged by the late Lord Lawrence. At that great meeting the chiefs residing in the Punjab and the trans-Sutlej states signed an agreement engaging to expel from caste every one who committed infanticide, to adopt fixed and moderate rates of marriage expenses, and to exclude from these ceremonies the minstrels and beggars who had so greatly swollen the expense. According to the present law, if the female children fall below a certain percentage in any tract or among any tribe in northern India where infanticide formerly prevailed, the suspected village is placed under police supervision, the cost being charged to the locality. By these measures, together with a strictly enforced system of reporting births and deaths, infanticide has been almost trampled out; although some of the Râjput clans keep their female offspring suspiciously close to the lowest average which secures them from surveillance.

The modern crime of infanticide shows no symptom of diminution in the leading nations of Europe. In all of them it is closely connected with illegitimacy in the class of farm and domestic servants. The crime is generally committed by the mother for the purpose of completing the concealment of her shame, and in other cases, where shame has not survived, in order to escape the burden of her child’s support. The paramour sometimes aids in the crime, which is not confined to unmarried mothers. The ease with which affiliation orders are obtained in Great Britain must save the lives of many children. In France, where the inquiry into paternity is forbidden, a controversy still goes on as to the influence of hospitals for “assisted children,” which are said to save life at the expense of morality. It seems certain that the great administrative change involved in closing the “tour” at these hospitals has not perceptibly affected infanticide in France. The laws of the European states differ widely on this subject,—some of them treating infanticide as a special crime, others regarding it merely as a case of murder of unusually difficult proof.

In the law of England, the inexcusable killing of infants is theoretically murder. The infant must of course be a human being in the legal sense; and “a child becomes a human being when it has completely proceeded in a living state from the body of its mother, whether it has breathed or not, and whether it has an independent circulation or not, and whether the navel string is severed or not; and the killing of such a child is homicide when it dies after birth in consequence of injuries received before, during, or after birth.’ A child in the womb, or in the act of birth, though it may have breathed, is therefore not a human being, the killing of which amounts to homicide. The older law of child murder under a statute of James I. consisted of cruel presumptions against the mother, and it was not till 1803 that trials for that offence were placed under the ordinary rules of evidence. There now is a presumption, said to be based on considerations of humanity, that every newborn child found dead is born dead until the contrary is very clearly shown. It is the opinion of the most eminent of British medical jurists that this presumption has tended to increase infanticide. Apart from this, the technical definition of human life has excited a good deal of comment and some indignation. The definition allows many wicked acts to go unpunished. The experience of assizes in England shows that many children are killed when it is impossible to prove that they were wholly born. The distinction taken by the law has probably by this time reached the minds of the class to which most of the unhappy mothers belong. Partly to meet this complaint, it was suggested to the Royal Commission of 1866 that killing during birth, or within seven days thereafter, should be an offence punishable with penal servitude. The second complaint is of an opposite character,—partly that infanticide by mothers is not a fit subject for capital punishment, and partly that, whatever be the intrinsic character of the act, juries will not convict or the executive will not carry out the sentence. Earl Russell gave expression to this feeling when he proposed that no capital sentence should be pronounced upon mothers for the killing of children within six months after birth.

It is a statutory offence, under 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, to administer poison or any noxious thing to a woman with child with intent to procure her miscarriage, or to use any instrument for the same purpose, the maximum punishment being penal servitude for life. The previous law had drawn the distinction of “quick with child,” and in such cases had punished capitally. It was a very old controversy among the philosophers and physicians of antiquity, when the foetus ceased to be pars viscerum matris and became “vital,” or, as it was afterwards called, “animate.” The law has not yet succeeded in putting down the degraded and wicked trade in abortion. There can be no doubt from the French and American treatises of Gallard and Storer that the crime prevails extensively, and even in classes of society in which infanticide proper would not be thought of without a shudder.

Under the same statute it is a misdemeanour punishable by two years’ imprisonment with hard labour, as a maximum, to endeavour to conceal the birth of a child by any secret disposition of its dead body, whether the child died before, after, or at its birth. This does not apply to very premature births, where it was impossible that the foetus should be alive. But it does apply to all those numerous cases where the child’s body, without being actually hidden, is placed where it is not likely to be found except by accident, or upon search. Lastly, under the same statute it is a misdemeanour punishable by five years’ penal servitude, as a maximum, to abandon or expose a child under the age υf two years, so as to endanger its life, or to inflict permanent injury, actual or probable, upon its health.

It is difficult to say to what extent infanticide prevails in the United Kingdom. At one time a large number of children were murdered in England for the mere purpose of obtaining the burial money from a benefit club. lu 1871 the House of Commons found it necessary to appoint a select committee “to inquire as to the best means of preventing the destruction of the lives of infants put out to nurse for hire by their parents.” The trials of

Margaret Waters and Mary Hall called attention to the infamous relations between the lying-in houses and the baby-farming houses of London. The form was gone through of paying a ridiculously insufficient sum for the maintenance of the child. “Improper and insufficient food,” said the Committee, “opiates, drugs, crowded rooms, bad air, want of cleanliness, and wilful neglect are sure to be followed in a few months by diarrhoea, convulsions, and wasting away.” These unfortunate children were nearly all illegitimate, and the mere fact of their being hand-nursed, and not breast-nursed, goes some way (according to the experience of the Foundling Hospital and the Magdalene Home) to explain the great mortality among them. Such children, when nursed by their mothers in the workhouse, generally live. The practical result of the committee of 1871 was the Act of 1872, 35 & 36 Vict. c. 38, which provides for the compulsory registration of all houses in which more than one child under the age of one year arc received for a longer period than twenty-four hours. No licence is granted by the justices of the peace, unless the house is suitable for the purpose, and its owner a person of good character and able to maintain the children. Offences against the Act, including wilful neglect of the children even in a suitable house, are punishable by a fine of j£5 or six months’ imprisonment with or without hard labour.

The law of Scotland also treats the unlawful killing of completely born infants as murder. In such cases a verdict of culpable homicide is usually returned, the punishment being entirely in the discretion of the court. Still more commonly the charge of concealment of pregnancy is made under the Act 49 Geo. III. c. 14, the maximum punishment being two years’ imprisonment. It must be shown that the woman concealed her condition during the whole period of pregnancy, and did not call for help at the birth. Unlawfully procuring abortion, whether by drugs or instruments, is also a crime known to the common law of Scotland, the punishment being penal servitude or imprisonment according to circumstances. In a variety of cases, which do not admit of general statement, convictions have also been obtained against parents of exposing and deserting children or placing them in danger, and of cruel and unnatural treatment and neglect.

Infanticide will have to be further considered under the heading Medical Jurisprudence. For that branch of the subject the works of Tardieu and Taylor are the most important and recent authorities. See also Whitehead On Abortion and Sterility, and the works of Gallard and Storer already referred to.

Bibliography.— Besides a very large number of theses and special dissertations, and the chapters on the subject in the leading works in medical jurisprudence, the following are the most important works on infanticide. Ploucquet, Commentarius Medicus in processus criminales super homicidio, infanticidio, tzc., 1736; W. Hunter, Uncertainty of the Signs of Murder in Bastard Children; Olivard, De l'infanticide et des moyens que Von employe pour le constater, Paris, 1802; Mahon, An Essay on the Signs of Murder in New-Born Children, translated by Johnson, Lancaster, 1813; Arrowsmith, Medico-legal Essay on Infanticide, Edin., 1828; Cummin, Proofs of Infanticide Considered, London, 1836; Ryan, Child Murder in its Sanitary and Social Bearings, 1858, anà. Infanticide, its Law, Prevalence, Prevention, and History, London, 1862; Kunze, Der Kindermord, historisch u. kritisch dargestellt, Leipsic, 1860; Greaves, Observations on some of the causes of Infanticide, Manchester, 1863, and Observations on the Laws referring to Child Murder and Criminal Abortion, Manchester, 1864; Storer and Heard, Criminal Abortion, its Nature, Evidence, and Law, Boston, 1868; Tardieu, Étude méd..-lég. et clinique sur l'avortement, Paris, 1864, and Étude méd.-lég. sur l’infanticide, ^P , Λτis, 1880; Toul-mouche, Études sur l'infanticide et la grossesse cachée ou simulée Paris, 1875; Gallard, De Vavortement au point de vue med.-leg., Paris, 1878. There are several works describing Indian infanticide. The best known is Infanticide, its Origin, Progress, and Suppression, London, 1857, by J. Cave Browne. See also the works of Moore, Cormack, and Wilson. (W. C. S. )