Abstract
Just as the idea of a handbook of psychology and law would have seemed farfetched until relatively recently, a chapter on children1 as legal actors would have made no sense until recent time in legal history. Although some provision was present even in Roman law for age-graded responsibility through the defense of infancy (Ludwig, 1950), little legal recognition of children’s interests separate from those of the community or their parents (specifically, their father) occurred before the late 19th century (Levine, Ewing, & Hager, 1987). Indeed, the classic treatises on the early English (Blackstone, 1876) and American (Kent, 1828/1896) common law considered children’s law largely in regard to the status of illegitimate children—such provisions themselves linking the status of children to the behavior of their parents.
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Melton, G.B. (1992). Children as Legal Actors. In: Kagehiro, D.K., Laufer, W.S. (eds) Handbook of Psychology and Law. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4038-7_14
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