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Full-Text Articles in Legal History
Governed By Marriage Law, Deirdre Mcgowan
Governed By Marriage Law, Deirdre Mcgowan
Books/Book Chapters
Marriage law links the private and the political, connecting the aspirations of individuals to the regulatory ambitions of the state. Marriage has significant social and cultural importance, but the assumptions of stability and care it entails are also useful to government. As a result, marriage law has, both historically and in the present, been offered as the solution to a range of social problems. Using Ireland as a case study example, this essay focuses on the problems which marriage law reform has attempted to address and the political frameworks within which reform took place. It suggests that marriage law is …
The Normalising Power Of Marriage Law: An Irish Genealogy, 1945-2010, Deirdre Mcgowan
The Normalising Power Of Marriage Law: An Irish Genealogy, 1945-2010, Deirdre Mcgowan
Other resources
Marriage law is often conceptualised as an instrument of power that illegitimately imposes the will of the State on its citizens. Paradoxically, marriage law is also offered as a route to liberation. In this thesis, I question the efficacy of this type of analysis by investigating the actual power effects of marriage law. Using Michel Foucault’s concepts of bio-power and government, and his genealogical approach to history, I identify the role played by marriage law in governing the social domain over a discrete period of Irish history. Drawing on this analysis I suggest that marriage law is part of a …