OK, so "common law" is a body of law that contains lots of history and precedent, dating back to when kids that age were regularly married off. Colonial America established ages of consent even lower than this, and wide efforts to change them did not occur until late the 19th Century. I think we can reasonably expect that "common law" would address something in which the *law* is interested. The law doesn't actually have a lot of interest in the biological fact of puberty, especially in regard to adulthood, unless it implies something about contractual or other competency on the part of the person undergoing it.
This is a gotcha setup that must SURELY have been presented in FULL knowledge that someone rushing to hit the buzzer first would have produced "consent" as an answer. My thought on reading the question was "this has to be fake — why would Jeopardy include such a creepy question?"
@caitlinburke That's always the thing about 'Jeopardy' that's always a bit vexing. I was offered the chance to go on the show, but I declined, after I came to a hard realization. A body of knowledge is only half of what makes a successful contestant on the show. The other half is being able to commit to answering the question, even before you see what the question is. Often, with the timings of those buttons, you have to buzz in, completely before your brain has a chance to get its pants on and give you a proper answer. They'll create questions intentionally meant to chuck you over the cliff like that, if you're not quick to read and dissect what they're looking for. Sadly, in the effort to do this, some of these questions can get into awfully dicey territory. When you're creating a bundle of questions for a show, I imagine there's a few of these stinkers sitting, waiting to be asked.
@GroggyGrognard: You're completely accurate based on my limited game show contestant experience (I couldn't even figure out how to properly work the buttons, which looked to have been assembled by a disinterested high school shop student), but it was still fun to be on the tee-vee box.
@Biscuit Jeopardy was the worst as far as buzzing in was concerned. You were supposed to listen through the whole question being read. When that question was read through, only then did a little red light go on, which signaled to you the buttons were live. Try to ring in early, and you'd get locked out. So here you were, trying to read/listen to the question, while waiting for that freaking light.....
@GroggyGrognard I would love a game show where the answers were open to interpretation and the contestants had to convince each other that they were right.
This is a gotcha setup that must SURELY have been presented in FULL knowledge that someone rushing to hit the buzzer first would have produced "consent" as an answer. My thought on reading the question was "this has to be fake — why would Jeopardy include such a creepy question?"
Like QI on the Beeb? https://www.youtube.com/watch...