Lanterna Rally

Author: Mary O'Dowd

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781108645164

"Marriage is one of the oldest institutions in Ireland. The earliest legal codes in Irish history incorporated a detailed set of regulations on the rights and responsibilities of husbands and wives. In the medieval period marriage was at the core of the conflict between Gaelic and English customs and social practices. Marital alliances were also an essential element in sixteenth and seventeenth century political and economic networks. The continuing significance of family connections is also evident in eighteenth-century Irish political life. In the nineteenth century, the financial arrangements for marriage were an important factor in the economic structure of rural society. Marriage also set the parameters for the sexual moral code which prevailed in twentieth-century Irish society. In this book we set out to write an extended study of the history of heterosexual marriage on the island of Ireland from 1660 to 1925. The time frame begins with the Restoration of Charles II as king of Ireland and ends with the parliamentary debate on divorce in the Irish Free State. The starting date of 1660 was partly determined by the availability of source material but the Restoration also marks the beginning of the legislative structure and the political divisions that were to frame the history of Ireland over the following two hundred and sixty years. We chose 1925 as our concluding year because the Oireachtas1 debate on divorce marked a significant turning point in evolving 1 The Oireachtas refers to the two houses of the Irish egislature (the Dáil, lower house and Seanad upper house). 16 attitudes to marriage in the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. The public controversy provoked by the debate silenced parliamentary discussion on the possible introduction of divorce in the Irish Free State. The 1937 constitutional ban on divorce continued the reluctance of the Irish state to countenance legislation on marital dissolution and remarriage until compelled to do so in the 1990s. 1925 was also an important year in the history of divorce in Northern Ireland. By contrast with the Irish Free State, the newly established parliament in Belfast agreed in 1921 to accept petitions for divorce and the first petition was read in the Northern Ireland House of Commons in 1925. Thereafter, marriage law in Northern Ireland was gradually brought into line with that in England. In 1939, divorce was transferred from the jurisdiction of the parliament to the High Court of Northern Ireland, a move which emphasised the increasing legal divergence of the two parts of the island"--