ABSTRACT
It is often said that life is a journey, an individual voyage which does not necessarily involve change of place. One is changed by events and by the passage of time.
In all cultures, there are certain fixed events which mark the transition from one stage of this journey to another. In all cultures, there are ceremonies which accompany birth, establish the entry of the adolescent into adulthood, mark the union of man and woman. Only one stage is not sanctioned by a ceremony, the onset of old age. There is a ceremony for death, but none to celebrate the passage from maturity to old age.
