Emancipation
Etymology
From Latin "emancipare" (to release from control), from "e-" (out) and "mancipium" (ownership), itself from "manus" (hand) and "capere" (to take). In Roman law it named freeing a son or slave from the father’s "hand" — his legal grasp — so emancipation is literally a release from another’s hand.
noun · /ih-man-sih-PAY-shun/
The act of setting someone free from legal, social, or political restraint.
What it names
Liberation granted or won as a formal change of status — the moment control is legally released — rather than an inner sense of freedom.
Example
The teenager sought legal emancipation so she could sign her own lease and keep her earnings.
Related idea
Emancipation is a formal release from someone else’s legal or social control; autonomy is the resulting capacity to govern oneself — one is the granting of freedom, the other the exercise of it.