Closures / Object References And Private Methods

I have some confusion about the scripts below:

1) is getRule a local variable or global variable, as it has no var keyword, yet it is an inner function of Validation? So without var, I think global, but being an inner function, I think local. So I'm not sure which.

2) In this line of code: var rule = $.Validation.getRule(types[type]), getRule returns rules, which is just a local variable in Validation. I always see that you return functions, but how does returning a local variable that's just an object literal and not a function be able to return true or false? Now the value of rules is an object literal, and this object returns true or false. So we are basically allowed to use return keyword with local variables that are object literals and not functions?

3) In this line, is foo(age) being called, or is it just being assigned to bar OR is it being called and THEN assigned to bar: var bar = foo(age);

4) Now for the most confusing: age is obviously an object reference as opposed to a literal in the example. Does that make a difference in regards to closures?
Note that I read a number of books, including JavaScript Programmer Reference and Object Oriented JavaScript and jQuery cookbook, which compare primitives vs reference types and how primitive types store directly in memory whereas reference tpyes reference memory, so if one reference changes, they all change where primitive remains ingrained. But when assigning a function as a reference like this, how does that affect the object "age" when passed into bar?

Code:
(function($) {
/*Validation Singleton*/
var Validation = function() {
var rules = {
email : {
check: function(value) {
if(value)
return testPattern(value,".+@.+..+");
return true;
}, .....
$.Validation = new Validation();
})(jQuery);

Code:
function foo(x) {
var tmp = 3;
return function (y) {
alert(x + y + tmp);
x.memb = x.memb ? x.memb + 1 : 1;
alert(x.memb);
}}
var age = new Number(2);
var bar = foo(age); // bar is now a closure referencing age.
bar(10);