“Our constitution is from the 18th century, and if you think about it, there aren’t many other technologies from the 18th century that we’re still using,” says Tom Ginsburg, a professor of law at the University of Chicago and the director of the Comparative Constitution Project, which collects and compares the constitutions of all nations. “Increasingly I’m seeing that people are finding that it really is out of date and wanting to follow Thomas Jefferson’s idea that we would change the constitution to keep up with the times.”

An indication of just how much is left unsaid in the US constitution is its length. At less than 8,000 words long, it is the 25th shortest in the world. By way of comparison, Canada’s is nearly 20,000 words, Germany over 27,000, South Africa 67,000. Even excluding India’s, which has more than 146,000 words and is more than twice the length of the second longest, the average length of constitutions is just under 22,000 words.

Because the US constitution is so abstract, it has been able to adjust over time. This would be in line with the theory that while specificity constrains, abstraction leaves space to grow, Ginsburg says. Yet his research has show the contrary: With the exception of the US’s, constitutions that are more specific tend to last longer. The need to amend their articles more frequently means citizens end up being more invested in them.

Read more at Quartz