Well, human laws have a ridiculous habit of not taking a person seriously while they're under a certain age. From what I understood of the concept when I was undergoing the process, emancipation would generally be severing the legal authority of an adult guardian, but it must be performed when those guardians were never present to begin with as well if an untended minor wishes to conduct their own affairs.

It's just a ridiculous hurdle your society's put on the young, as far as I was able to tell, yet no less necessary to do anyway.

[ you're welcome for the irrelevant information and opinion, gil. ]

I'm sure Matthew would have known quite a bit about it, but he's gone now, I hear. Though it doesn't seem you needed it either way.