marriage divorce legal-history inheritance
On Irish marriage property and divorce law circa 1939
<p>My questions arise from a scenario in <em>Finnegans Wake</em> by James Joyce, published in 1939, and hence pertain to Irish law around or before 1939.</p>

<p>As a young Dublin girl, Anna inherits property from her father, a house with inn and shop. Anna marries Finnegan.</p>

<ol>
<li>Post marriage, what would be Anna's and Finnegan's claims on the property Anna inherited before marrying Finnegan?</li>
</ol>

<p>Twin sons are born. Later, Anna has another child, a girl, but Finnegan doesn't think he's the father! Finnegan wants to divorce Anna.</p>

<ol start="2">
<li>Could Finnegan legally divorce Anna?</li>
</ol>

<p>Finnegan throws Anna out of her home for what seems like 3-4 years.</p>

<ol start="3">
<li><p>If divorce was possible, was there a requirement that the couple live separately for a number of years?</p></li>
<li><p>If the divorce had legally gone through, what would be Anna's and Finnegan's claims on the property Anna inherited before marrying Finnegan?</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Just to note that before the divorce can even happen, Finnegan falls from a ladder and dies.</p>

<h2>There was no <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteenth_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland" rel="nofollow noreferrer">divorce</a> in Ireland between 1937 and 1996</h2>

<p>Before 1937, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Free_State" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Irish Free State</a> inherited the divorce laws that were then in force. These required an <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09612025.2013.767101?journalCode=rwhr20" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Act of Parliament</a> (which was ludicrously expensive and therefore not available to someone of Finnegan's means) or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annulment" rel="nofollow noreferrer">annulment</a> (which is strictly speaking, the official recognition that a marriage never happened rather than a divorce).</p>

<h2>The house <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_rights_of_women_in_history#Ireland" rel="nofollow noreferrer">belongs</a> to Finnegan</h2>

<blockquote>
  <p>At common law a woman could own both real and personal property. However, in the case of a married woman the husband had a life interest in any real property: this continued even after the wife's death, and was known as tenancy "by the curtesy". Personal property passed into the ownership of the husband absolutely, with the exception of certain items of adornment or household use known as paraphernalia. <strong>Upon marriage, all of the wife's property becomes under the hands of her husband even if it was her family inheritance.</strong> Any money the wife earned through labour or trade also ended up in the hands of her husband whom she was expected to obey in the custom of marriage at the time.</p>
</blockquote>
