Technological University Dublin ARROW@TU Dublin Other resources Law 2015-4 The Normalising Power of Marriage Law: An Irish Genealogy, 1945-2010 Deirdre McGowan Technological University Dublin, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/aaschlawoth Part of the Family Law Commons, Law and Society Commons, and the Legal History Commons Recommended Citation McGowan, D. (2015) The Normalising Power of Marriage Law: An Irish Genealogy, 1945-2010 Thesis submitted for PhD, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 2015. This Theses, Ph.D is brought to you for free and open access by the Law at ARROW@TU Dublin. It has been accepted for inclusion in Other resources by an authorized administrator of ARROW@TU Dublin. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License Funder: National University of Ireland, Maynooth The Normalising Power of Marriage Law: An Irish Genealogy, 1945 – 2010. Deirdre Mc Gowan. Thesis submitted for PhD. National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Department of Law. September 2014. Head of Department: Professor Michael Doherty. Supervisors: Dr Neil Maddox, Dr Rebecca King-O’Riain. Contents Contents ................................................................................................................... 1 .................................................................................................................................. 1 Summary ................................................................................................................. 4 Acknowledgments ................................................................................................... 6 Table of Cases ......................................................................................................... 7 Ireland ................................................................................................................... 7 England and Wales ............................................................................................... 8 European Court of Human Rights ........................................................................ 9 United States ......................................................................................................... 9 Table of Legislation .............................................................................................. 10 Irish Statutes ....................................................................................................... 10 Irish Statutory Instruments.................................................................................. 12 United Kingdom Statutes .................................................................................... 13 United Kingdom Statutory Instruments .............................................................. 13 German Statutes .................................................................................................. 13 International Conventions ................................................................................... 13 European Union Treaties .................................................................................... 13 European Union Directives ................................................................................. 13 Constitution of the Irish Free State 1922 ............................................................ 13 Constitution of Ireland 1937 ............................................................................... 14 Constitution of the United States of America ..................................................... 14 One - Introduction ................................................................................................ 15 1.1 Michel Foucault and the Functions of Marriage Law................................... 18 1.2 Marriage Law ................................................................................................ 21 1.3 An Irish Experience ...................................................................................... 22 1 1.4 Outline of Thesis ........................................................................................... 25 1.5 Irish Marriage Law before 1970 ................................................................... 30 1.6 Conclusion. ................................................................................................... 50 Two - Marriage Law Literature .......................................................................... 52 2.1 Juridical Power ............................................................................................. 53 2.2 Legal Scholarship and Limits to Power ........................................................ 56 2.3 Opposing Tradition and Modernity .............................................................. 57 2.4 Public Law or Private Law. .......................................................................... 66 2.5 Feminist Approaches. ................................................................................... 73 2.6 Beyond the Juridical ..................................................................................... 78 2.7 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 85 Three - Theoretical Framework .......................................................................... 88 3.1 Foucault and Power ...................................................................................... 89 3.2 Power/Knowledge Configurations ................................................................ 96 3.3 Securing Bio-political objectives - Government ........................................ 103 3.4 ‘Law’ and Foucault. .................................................................................... 108 3.5 Analysing Marriage Law ............................................................................ 120 3.6 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 122 Four - Method ..................................................................................................... 125 4.1 A Methodological Approach ...................................................................... 128 4.2 Genealogy, an Historical Methodology ...................................................... 130 4.3 Analysing Power Relationships .................................................................. 134 4.4 Doing Genealogy and Discourse analysis .................................................. 143 4.5 Building the Analysis.................................................................................. 148 4.6 Conclusion. ................................................................................................. 150 Five – Desertion and Maintenance 1945 - 1976 ............................................... 152 5.1 Marriage as an Unproblematic Field of Experience. .................................. 154 5.2 Governing the Social – Problematising Marriage....................................... 164 5.3 The Deserted Wife ...................................................................................... 168 5.4 Reforming Marriage Law ........................................................................... 179 5.5 The Power Effects of Marriage Law Reform ............................................. 186 5.6 New Sources of Political Knowledge ......................................................... 192 5.7 Conclusion. ................................................................................................. 195 2 Six – Marriage Breakdown 1976 - 1990 ................................................... 198 6.1 Governing the Social through Economic Decline ...................................... 199 6.2 The Problem with Marriage ........................................................................ 206 6.3 Protecting Marriage – A New Reform Imperative. .................................... 211 6.4 Implementing the Marriage-Saving Objective ........................................... 222 6.5 Political Strategies for Protecting Marriage................................................ 229 6.6 Marriage-Saving Law ................................................................................. 233 6.7 The Power Effects of Marriage Law........................................................... 237 6.8 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 240 Seven – Marriage-Saving Divorce 1991 - 1997 ................................................ 243 7.1 Economic Improvement .............................................................................. 244 7.2 The Persistence of Dependency-Model Marriage ...................................... 250 7.3 Alternative Ways of Knowing about Marriage........................................... 262 7.4 Saving Marriage with Divorce .................................................................... 267 7.5 The Effects of Marriage Law ...................................................................... 276 7.6 Shifting knowledge ..................................................................................... 291 7.7 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 292 Eight – Rationalising Relationships 1997 - 2010 .............................................. 296 8.1 Ensuring