Gender, familism and housing: Matrimonial property rights in Ireland

This article explores the gender structure of housing rights, and specifically matrimonial property law, in the Republic of Ireland as a basis for examining the means by which women gain access to and control over economic resources, or capital. Taking the Family Home Protection Act (1976) and the ill-fated Matrimonial Home Bill (1993) as examples of legislation to strengthen women's matrimonial property rights, it is argued that these have been formulated using gendered, familist, categories of reform. The State's attempts to strengthen women's entitlements have been mediated by its constitutional commitment to maintain a preference for the marital family as well as its failure to recognise the economic value of women's unpaid domestic work. This article argues that in this context, the Irish State's strategy of gender equality: which is based on the equitable treatment of different household types, is divisive, ineffective. and inequitable. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.