A most eloquent expression of the truth underlying the cant about gender equality in Ireland occurred last week in the form of the silence which greeted the verdict of the Supreme Court in the case taken by Anthony, Angela and Mark Lowth, who had laid claim that the State should treat deserted husbands in the same way as deserted wives. The Lowths lost their case. And although we live in an age in which it is said to be right and proper that men and women have similar freedoms and entitlements, there was not a murmur to be heard from those normally to the fore in demanding changes in such matters.
Tony Lowth is a deserted husband who has spent almost 15 years single-handedly bringing up his children, Angela and Mark, who are now 17 and 16 respectively. The Lowths claimed that the 1981 Social Welfare Act was unconstitutional on the basis that, by denying the same benefits to deserted husbands as are given to deserted wives, it did not treat all citizens equally in the manner laid down by Article 40.1 of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court judgment upheld an earlier High Court ruling which found it is the law of the land that married women in Irish society fulfill a different function to married men, and therefore require more help from the State. The Supreme Court agreed with the judgment of Mr Justice Costello, citing various statistics about the proportion of married women in the workforce at the relevant times, and the relative disadvantage of such women in comparison to men. In other words, Mr Lowth's personal circumstances were as nothing when compared to the general picture perceived in gender terms.
Let us be clear about something before we go on: we should not seek to impugn the wisdom, integrity or truth-seeking qualities of either of the courts which have pronounced on this issue. The courts are there to interpret the law of the land, and that is what they have done. But one would have thought, given the changing nature of Irish society, and the voluminous rhetoric which attaches thereto, that the verdict in the Lowth case would have met with outrage from those who wish, for example, to free women from the slavery of housework and encourage men to undertake proper responsibility in the rearing of children. One might have thought that upon the rejection of the case last Tuesday, the battalion of activists and campaigners usually to be heard at great length and volume when issues of equality are raised, would have taken to the airwaves with a vengeance.
Mr Lowth, after all, had taken on to himself the responsibility which in certain sexist quarters would be deemed "women's work", and was asking simply that he be given financial help by the State in the manner provided for deserted parents who happen to be female. On being denied such help, Tony Lowth not merely continued to bring up his children unaided, but embarked on a protracted legal battle against the very institutions which supposedly exist to help those who find themselves in difficulty.
The State, far from recognising the fundamental breach of human rights over which it was presiding and rectifying the matter by way of legislation, embarked on a determined defence of the morally indefensible, using your money and mine in an attempt to trample Tony Lowth underfoot. Mr Lowth is now faced with huge legal bills, and may yet have to sell his house. Meanwhile, the forces of the State celebrate their "victory", and the champions of equality look the other way.
In truth, we owe our courts an enormous debt of gratitude for the clarity with which they have cut through the humbug of "modern" Ireland. For what they have done is outline in public the unadorned fact that the State, through its Constitution and laws, continues to hold the woman's place is in the home, and the man's in the workplace, and that this is pretty much the way things should remain. It is, it appears, the policy of this State - as interpreted by its two principal courts - that men who do what decency demands are not to be helped or encouraged. What the policy of the State is with regard to how men in Tony Lowth's position should behave is unclear. Are they expected to abandon their children at home all day while they go out to work to put bread on the table? Is it assumed that such men will have ready access to the unpaid services of (presumably female) relatives to mind their children while they are out working? Or are such men, perhaps, expected to marry again? Surely not, since the law of the land at the relevant times was that no law should be enacted providing for the granting of a dissolution of marriage.
The Supreme Court judgment, in its laying bare of the true nature of Irish society, was deeply fascinating in some of the possibilities it raised. It noted that the provisions of the Constitution in respect of the family recognise a social and domestic order in which married women are unlikely to work outside the family home. This would seem to imply that attempts to introduce genuine concepts of equality in the workplace are, in certain situations, potentially unconstitutional. The particular issue of benefits for deserted spouses has recently been side-stepped so as to channel the discrimination against men in a different direction, but the principle remains intact.
To this layman, the judgment raises the intriguing possibility that a deserted husband seeking to challenge the appointment to a senior post of a woman who had herself been deserted by her husband, and who had been given the job in preference to the complainant, might in recent years have had a strong case to have such an appointment overturned on the basis that it is the formal policy of this State that work outside the family home is more appropriately carried out by men, whereas deserted wives have at least been entitled to obtain benefit if they stay at home to mind their children.
I imagine that any such pronouncement by an Irish court would be greeted by the immediate cluttering of the public airwaves by voices condemning the Islamic nature of the Irish State. Why, then, was the Lowth judgment - which had precisely the same implications - greeted with almost total silence? Could it be because Tony Lowth is a man, and any defeat of any man, in whatever circumstances, is viewed by the interests which normally pursue this type of issue as a triumph for the sisterhood? Could it be that the failure of the Lowth case was perceived as a victory because it confirmed the "correctness" of the situation whereby none of the money finding its way into the purses of women was to be diverted into the back pockets of the dreaded male? But that would imply that such people are not at all interested in the issue of equality, but are rather engaged in a battle with all men, including those - like Tony Lowth - who behave as feminists have always said they would like to see men behave. That would imply that the word "equality" translates in Irish society as "what women want". And that couldn't be so. Could it?