It’s about equality for all people - The marriage referendum

SOCIETIES evolve by leaving behind beliefs and practices once thought eternal; by embracing alternatives that better fit the world as it is, not as it was or as is imagined.

There was a time when Western societies were confident that they were doing the right thing when they executed people for modest offences, sometimes even for not subscribing to a particular brand of Christianity. The foundations of many European economies were set on slavery.

There may even be a few people still working in our public service who remember female colleagues who had to surrender their career when they married. There are certainly tens of thousands of people who remember their parents trapped in toxic, often violent, marriages because they could not escape through divorce. There are tens of thousands of people, mostly women, still struggling with the consequences of an unplanned and secret pregnancy because they did not, on pain of a mortal sin, have access to contraception. Marital rape was not outlawed in Ireland until 1990. Just over 30 years ago a married woman’s income was automatically treated under our tax laws as “extra” income for her husband.