Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-gq7q9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-22T00:15:27.579Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Divorce in the Post-Reform Era of 1857–1922: ‘Like Diamonds, Gambling, and Picture-Fancying, a Luxury of the Rich’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2020

Diane Urquhart
Affiliation:
Queen's University Belfast
Get access

Summary

Although the sexual double standard endured in the divorce court, parliamentary divorce remained lengthier, costlier and more socially and gender-biased. This chapter examines the profile of Irish parliamentary divorce petitioners and legal critics of the system. Successive attempts to reform Irish divorce provision failed. The personal trials that the lack of legislative uniformity in the UK caused was underscored by the Yelverton case which invoked Scottish, Irish and English law and partially inspired a royal commission to consider extending the jurisdiction of the divorce court in 1861. The commission recommended the unification of divorce provision throughout the UK, but this was never implemented. A further royal commission considered the laws of marriage from 1865 and recommended that divorce laws should be unified throughout the UK, but like the earlier calls for Irish divorce reform, this was never enacted: Ireland remained legislatively stranded. The O’Shea divorce in 1891, citing Irish nationalist leader Parnell as co-respondent, also drew the association between morality and divorce ever tighter and the full force of moral Catholicism was unleashed for the first time.

Type
Chapter
Information
Irish Divorce
A History
, pp. 76 - 105
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×