I don’t think I knew, before yesterday, that Ireland’s constitution has a clause about women and “their duties in the home.”
It’s in Article 41, starting on page 160 of the government version.
2° The State recognises the Family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law.
That’s an alarming sentence already. It sounds Vaticanesque, but I haven’t been able to find anything from the Vatican that says, as that sentence seems to, that the family is “superior to” (and thus immune from?) the law. I have a feeling I’ve written about the idea before, too, but I haven’t been able to find that either. It’s a terrible idea, though. We’re all very familiar with how common it is for someone – especially someone female – to need the protection of the law because ”the family” is intent on killing her, or beating her up or locking her in her room forever or keeping her out of school. Yes the law is cold, and no substitute for a loving family, but it can be a much-needed protection from an enraged family.
1° In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.
2° The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.
Wow. The Constitution tells the women of Ireland that they have duties in the home, which they should not neglect.
Yes, Ireland needs to empower its women through secularism!