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Under Irish law, women enjoyed considerable social freedom in a sense. Indeed, under Gaelic custom, we are told that during feasts the married women used to sit and drink with the men; where, under English law, they would retire of course at a certain point; and only the unmarried girls were sent away as the party got wilder.
And their control of property when they were in a married state was greater than English women: they had more independence.
But there were certain advantages under the English system which the Irish women didn’t have and sometimes complained that they were deprived-of when they married English husbands: and one of these was the widow’s dower which gave a widow of a land-owner a life interest in half or a third of her husband’s lands after his death. This didn’t have a parallel in Irish Law.
Also, though this was perhaps more a question of social conditions, English women under the northern renaissance had greater access to education, though the Scottish wives of the northern chiefs (Agnes Campbell and the wife of O’Donnell) had a very considerable education and were much admired for it when they came to Ireland.
Ìý
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