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Under English common law, women did have more specific and written-down protection than they had under Brehon law. Brehon law was exercised in a very arbitrary fashion - an arbitration and discussing the outcome was a part of Brehon law, so that the legal code was not written down in the same way it was in English common law.
So single women almost had the same status under English common law as a man. Married women, married women were legally represented by their husbands, so their status was reduced once they got married: but if they became widowed, their legal status would improve again and they would be able to represent themselves in the courts.
Under the Gaelic system there are no courts, there is no legal infrastructure where women can go and complain. But under English common law it was, in theory at least, possible for a woman to bring a complaint - either to a Dublin court or to some of the local courts. Some of the settlers introduced ‘manor courts’ which were local courts on the estate: it was possible for a woman to bring her complaints to that court, and some of those local courts would have permitted women to represent themselves.
So there’s none of that legal structure in the Gaelic system where women could go to represent themselves.
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