Definition
In civil law, puerility is the legal stage of childhood that falls between infancy and puberty. It was recognized as a distinct developmental and legal condition, lasting from age seven to either twelve (for girls) or fourteen (for boys). During this period, a child was no longer considered an infant in the strict legal sense but had not yet attained the full legal capacities associated with puberty.
Roman jurists subdivided puerility into two phases: proximus infantiae (closer to infancy), during which a child's legal position resembled that of an infant and their capacity to act was severely limited, and proximus pubertati (closer to puberty), during which a child's growing reason was recognized and greater legal consequence was attached to their acts.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The state or condition of being childish or puerile; also, that which is puerile — especially an expression that is insipid or silly.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The quality of being puerile; childishness. Also, that which is puerile or childish — especially a flat, insipid, or silly expression.
In ordinary usage, puerility simply means childishness or immaturity, often used as a mild insult. The legal meaning is narrower and technical: it denotes a formally bounded stage of legal childhood with defined age limits and graduated legal consequences, not a qualitative judgment about behavior or expression. A researcher encountering the term in a legal source should not read it as merely descriptive.
Common Confusion
Puerility is sometimes loosely conflated with infancy in older legal sources, but the civil law distinguished these categories carefully. Infancy ran from birth to age seven. Puerility began at seven, where infancy ended. The confusion matters because the legal incapacities attached to each stage differed: the infant was wholly without legal capacity, while the child in puerility — particularly in the proximus pubertati phase — was understood to be developing reason and could, in some circumstances, have acts given limited legal effect. Confusing puerility with infancy in translation or interpretation overstates incapacity.
Puerility should also not be read as equivalent to minority in the modern sense. Minority is a broader concept covering the entire period before legal adulthood; puerility was a specific sub-stage within that broader framework.
Why It Matters in Research
Puerility is primarily a term of Roman and civil law origin. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in sources treating civil law systems, historical canon law, or early American legal writers drawing on civil law foundations. It is essentially absent from the English common law tradition as a technical term, which means its appearance in a source is itself a signal about that source's intellectual lineage.
The age-differentiated structure of puerility — different end-points for boys and girls — reflects Roman law's approach to physical development as a marker of legal capacity. Researchers should be attentive to this when examining historical doctrines of contractual capacity, testamentary capacity, or criminal responsibility in civil law jurisdictions. The proximus infantiae / proximus pubertati subdivision is significant: acts performed during proximus infantiae were treated with greater indulgence, closer to the absolute incapacity of infancy, while acts during proximus pubertati could carry more legal weight.
In canon law sources, puerility bears on questions of the age of reason and sacramental capacity, and the age markers track similarly. Researchers working on historical marriage law — particularly the canonical minimum ages for marriage — will find puerility adjacent to discussions of puberty requirements for matrimonial consent.
Modern Anglo-American legal materials will not use this term. Any occurrence in contemporary sources is almost certainly either a quotation from historical authority or a rhetorical use of the common-language meaning (childishness), not a technical legal category.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries are in close agreement. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier give nearly identical definitions, placing puerility between infancy and puberty with the same age ranges. Bouvier adds the most analytical depth, citing Ayliffe's Pandects and naming the proximus infantiae / proximus pubertati subdivision, which Black's omits. That subdivision is substantively important and its absence from Black's is a gap researchers should note.
None of the historical dictionaries engage with how puerility interacted with specific legal transactions — contract, testament, delict — in Roman law. They record the category but not its operational consequences. For that, primary Roman law sources (Justinian's Institutes) and commentary works are necessary. Bouvier's citation to Ayliffe is a useful pointer for researchers needing period-appropriate civil law treatment.
The definitions have not materially changed between Black's editions, suggesting this was treated as settled historical information rather than a living legal concept requiring updating.
Jurisdictional Note
Puerility as a technical legal term belongs to civil law systems rooted in Roman law. It does not function as a formal category in modern American or English common law. Researchers working in Louisiana, Quebec, or other mixed civil law jurisdictions may encounter its influence in historical materials, but contemporary statutes in those jurisdictions use modern minority and capacity frameworks.