2 Million British Youths Come of Age Overnight'

By ROBERT C. TOTH "Darling," LONDON sighs the wide-eyed dolly bird to her boyfriend on the birthday card. "Now we're #18 and can do something we've always wanted to do

"Vote!" shouts the inside kicker, with the real message of the political birth-day greeting in small print: "You're 18. Thanks to Labor you've got the vote. Make sure you use it.”

THE VOTING age drops from 21 Feb. 25 and that, to-

gether with a cut in the age of majority from 21 to 18 New Year's Day, will confer instant adulthood on 2.3 million British youths.

Marriage at 18 without parental consent is the most radical effect of the majority age change and will have the most immediate impact. Marriage offices expect a minor stampede of "overnight adults" right after the holidays.

The new legal maturity will also mean 18-year-olds can give blood, get pass-

ports, sit on juries and enter binding contracts in gererai, enjoy all the pleasures and responsibilities of coming of age.

THE TWO ACTS climax an unprecedented five-year period of social reform under the Labor government. As a result, Britain enters the new decade with the most liberal laws on social behavior outside of Scandinavia. Among them are:

• Abolition of the death penalty. The ban was ostensibly for a five-year test pe-

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riod ending in July but there is little chance it will be repealed.

homosexual

• Allowing practices. Relations in private betwe e n consenting adults are no longer a crime.

• Legalized abortion. Two doctors need only agree that the physical or mental health of the woman, or existing members of her family, might be adversely affected by the baby's birth.

• Easier divorce. Irretrievable breakdown of the marriage is the basic criterion. Divorce is obtainable

after two years separation if both partners agree, after five years even if one objects.

• Free birth control. Local governments (cities, boroughs) may provide full services, including pills, for social or medical reasons under a 1968 act. About 30 do so far.

This tide of so-called "permissive legislation" has run irregularly, however, and there are signs that is peaking.

A NEVADA-TYPE gambling act passed by a Conservative government in 1962 has been tightened severely by the Labor government. It has also tightened drug laws — addicts must addicts must go to a special treatment center instead of a favorite general practioner for their legal fix and has refused to ease laws on marijuana despite the recommendations of a prestigious committee. Stage censorship was abolished, but moves to liberalize the obscenity laws have been opoosed.

Nonetheless, there has been so much easing of legal

restraints on `social behavior since 1965 coinciding with, but not necessarily related to rising crime rates

that Labor is worried about getting blamed for promoting the "permissive society."

"Permissive society" is both a dirty phrase and a misleading description, Chancellor of the Exchequer Roy Jenkins said.

"A better phrase is the civilized society," he said, "based on the belief that different individuals will wish to make different decisions about their patterns of behavior and that, provided

these do not restrict the these do not restrict the freedom of others, they should be allowed to do so within a framework of un-

derstanding and tolerance."

THERE HAVE always been excesses in society, he added. "They may now be more in the open. But that 'does not make them worse.

they can be at least as bad possibly more so if shrouded behind a veil of secrecy.

"And the idea that our moderate progress toward giving the individual greater freedom from the law in matters of social conduct is responsible for the troubles of our modern society,” he insisted, “is plain non-

sense.

These are old Conservative versus Liberal issues which cut across party lines to neither party's obvious benefit, but Labor does see unalloyed political gold in the measures that emancipate British youth.

The majority age cut was recommended two years ago by a select committee under Sir John Latey, a High Court judge, after considerable study. Labor pushed its findings into law.

"WE HAVE had impressive evidence," the Latey committee reported, "that the young are usually quite capable of conducting their own affairs with sense and honesty." They are better educated, more affluent and sophisticated, and they achieve physical maturity earlier than in the past — in short, they have a different character from previous youth, it said.

Historical reasons for the majority age being 21 are irrelevant to contemporary society, the committee found. They are also rather funny. It was 15 until the 11th century the age when the barbarians considered their young old enough to fight. With knights and armor, the age went up to 21 "directly linked with the ability to hold up a heavy suit of armor and lift a lance or sword."

And so it has been 21 ever since.

The prospect of earlier imprudent marriages was more difficult to accept. Divorce is three times more

likely when both partners marry under 20.

THE CHURCH of England gave its reluctant blessing to a lower age for marriage, largely on the ground that the parental veto was just not working. The bishop of Leicester told parliament that 40% of brides in 1965 were under 21. This was not so much because of earlier

maturity, he said, but because of a completely changed social pattern.

Once 18 was accepted as the new age of majority by Parliament, cutting the voting age was inevitable.

But it also made good political sense for Labor to give youth the vote. The young in any society tend to be leftist and in favor of re-

form, which ordinarily means voting Labor in Britain.

Coming of political age for the next election in the be not only the 2.3 million spring of 1971 or earlier will 18-to-21-year-olds but also 4.25 million young people up to 25 who were not old enough to vote in the last election in 1966. Together they will add a whopping 20% to the total electorate.