Did women in Ireland need a guarantor to borrow money?

An aunt who is in her seventies said it was compulsory in most jobs for women to leave work when they got married back in the 60's and early 70's. Her first job (summer holidays) was in arnotts and all the female staff were either very young like her, or much older and single. She said it was very obvious in shops like Clerys, BT, Switzers, Bolgers, Easons in Dublin city centre.

She knew young women who worked in retail, manufacturing and clerical jobs and every one of them had to leave their jobs when they got married. Most of her contemporaries left school after JC and went on to do nursing, joined the civil service/bank/aer lingus, did a course in office skills (shorthand typists), or got a job in a local shop or factory. Apparently, any apprenticeship, further education or third level was for the boys!

Also, when she applied to aib for her first car loan in the 70's, she was told her husband or father had to co-sign it. She was really annoyed and asked if she had been unmarried and her father dead, what happened then? She was told another male relative would suffice! She told us that when she joined a M/N tech in the early 80's, female employees could not wear trousers to work, and relationships between colleagues wasn't allowed.
 
I recall my dad having a row with the bank about joint accounts. He was ill and was concerned that she wouldn’t have access to ready cash. So they kept money in the house which worried them both so he took a day off work and they went to the back together. My granny came to mind us. Mum brought the children’s allowance book as proof of some income. The bank manager suggested she open a post office account instead.
But eventually they got their joint account and they also put the house into joint names.

That was in 1971 or 76 as I recall there being a baby in the house and that’s when my siblings were born.

Mum was a civil servant so lost her job when she married. A neighbour was widowed in 1970 and pleaded with a TD to help her and she got her civil service job back after a few years banging on doors.

Childcare was largely informal and traded between women and also many houses had a widowed granny or single elderly aunt living in for a few years so there was childcare. Just not regulated and payments were in kind or cash.
 
The fact that the marriage bar also existed in other countries is irrelevant surely? Unless the BBC said it was unique to Ireland?
 
Towger said:
Closer to home, my grandmother widowed by 1950 ran her own company, employing over 20-30 people and bought and sold property as a side line. We came across some paperwork clearing the house. Applications for different loans with detailed business plans etc. She had a favourite manager with BOI she used for years. She used to tell me she was a business woman ahead of her time. With stories of going into builder providers lists of items and bargaining the price down, saying they were not used to dealing with a Woman.
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The popular idea of women's role being confined to the home doesn't reflect every experience.

When my great grandmother died in the 1930s, the local paper described her as 'one of the town's most enterprising citizens combining a wealth of business acumen and initiative, she built up a flourishing and lucrative general business'.

After her death the business was carried on by my grandmother.
 
T McGibney said:
No, I worked there in the mid-80s and there were a number of married female staff who had been there decades at that point.
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The 'marriage bar' was policy in the Civil Service from 1926, (my grandmother was employed as a teacher in 1919 and worked all her life, something that would have been impossible if she had been recruited after 1926) it also operated in many large private businesses. No private company was required to operate a marriage bar.

In 1973 (in conjunction with joining the EEC ?) the policy was dropped by the Civil Service and specifically prohibited by law for all employers.
 
There is an interview online which I listened to recently between Turtle Bunbury the historian (I think that's what he is) and Freda Jones who was a good friend of my mothers and who as it happens is being buried today having died aged 95. In it she talks about how she had to give up her teaching job when she got married, I can't remember the exact details but obviously she was of similar age to my mother but married earlier.
 
Monbretia said:
There is an interview online which I listened to recently between Turtle Bunbury the historian (I think that's what he is) and Freda Jones who was a good friend of my mothers and who as it happens is being buried today having died aged 95. In it she talks about how she had to give up her teaching job when she got married, I can't remember the exact details but obviously she was of similar age to my mother but married earlier.
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My father was born in the late 1920s and was taught at school by a married female teacher.

It's a pity she didn't have to give up her teaching job when she got married, because by his and his friends' accounts, she was a total sadist.
 
T McGibney said:
My father was born in the late 1920s and was taught at school by a married female teacher.

It's a pity she didn't have to give up her teaching job when she got married, because by his and his friends' accounts, she was a total sadist.
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Only came in for teachers in 1932 afaik so might account for that, wonder if those already in place and married before that got to stay! I know the principal of the school in one of my mother's first teaching jobs was a widow so whether she had been there before husband died I don't know.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
single women needed a guarantor.
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Female relative, in a permanent teaching role was refused a bank loan (1981) to purchase a car.

In the same week, her younger brother, a contract carpenter, was granted his second car loan (having written off car #1 in an accident). Same bank, same branch, same manager.

Relative returned to branch manager & apprised them of this fact and stated their opinion in regards to discrimination.

Loan was approved.

There are many forms of barriers and discriminatory practices.

The legal marriage bar was only one.

As can clearly be seen in the many cases brought before the WRC, just passing laws doesn't stop discriminatory behaviour.
 
I think banks were quite prehistoric places.

My mother’s attempts to use her maiden name after marriage (late 1970s) were thwarted by the bank’s insistence on use of my father’s surname on all documents and correspondence.
 
Dr Strangelove said:
I think banks were quite prehistoric places.

My mother’s attempts to use her maiden name after marriage (late 1970s) were thwarted by the bank’s insistence on use of my father’s surname on all documents and correspondence.
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The Revenue Commissioners were the same - correspondence addressed to me after my marriage in mid-80s used my husband's surname, even though I hadn't advised them I was taking his surname. Took a lot of discussion and a visit to the revenue office to get the documentation corrected.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
In a piece on BBC Radio 4 last night about Nell McCafferty an Irish Woman , sounded like "Mary McAlinden" said "Irish women had to leave work when they got married and could not get a bank loan without a male guarantor or rent a TV without a male guarantor".

There was a marriage bar in the civil service, but did it apply anywhere else?

I had not heard the bit about requiring a male guarantor before?

Anyone know how to check this out?

There have been widespread claims that Edna O'Brien's Country Girls was burnt but there is no evidence for it.

Brendan
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The Family Home Protection Act 1976 was introduced because of the high number of homes in single names. Usually the mans and in rural areas (farms). It meant the home could be sold without the wives consent or knowledge. My recollection is the marriage bar continued up to 1977. Most women when they got married especially in the public service could access their superannuation when they left work.
 
cremeegg said:
The 'marriage bar' was policy in the Civil Service from 1926, (my grandmother was employed as a teacher in 1919 and worked all her life, something that would have been impossible if she had been recruited after 1926) it also operated in many large private businesses. No private company was required to operate a marriage bar.

In 1973 (in conjunction with joining the EEC ?) the policy was dropped by the Civil Service and specifically prohibited by law for all employers.
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While it sounds horrendous now, those who were forced to leave got some form of exit payment which went a good way towards a deposit for a house. Some (perhaps most) were quite happy to take it and leave.

Also, jobs were scarce and married women with jobs were considered to be effectively robbing one from an unemployed man.

Even after the marriage bar was lifted, the option to resign on marriage and take the payment was retained as a benefit for women who were already there in 1973. It was considered a benefit and many availed of the option. I remember a middle aged lady resigning on marriage in 1991 and availing of the exit payment.
 
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My mum was delighted to get the money and leave. In 1959, no choice. She hated her job. And she planned on having lots of kids quickly and dad didn’t want the humiliation of having a working wife. And mum had never planned on working until retirement so education and job ambition was pretty limited.

But we were pretty broke for many years and crammed into a small house. When dad got sick we were at risk of losing the house and being really poor, luckily he recovered.

One of his mates married a teacher, that was seen as the ideal job. School holidays off and you didn’t get fired for getting married. They were rich, two incomes… living the dream.

Nurses were also allowed work after marriage. Even better they could work nights and weekends and mind the kids the rest of the time… sleep is for losers… but again double income families… and they got pensions like the teachers.
 
Annieindublin said:
My mum was delighted to get the money and leave. In 1959, no choice. She hated her job. And she planned on having lots of kids quickly and dad didn’t want the humiliation of having a working wife. And mum had never planned on working until retirement so education and job ambition was pretty limited.

But we were pretty broke for many years and crammed into a small house. When dad got sick we were at risk of losing the house and being really poor, luckily he recovered.

One of his mates married a teacher, that was seen as the ideal job. School holidays off and you didn’t get fired for getting married. They were rich, two incomes… living the dream.

Nurses were also allowed work after marriage. Even better they could work nights and weekends and mind the kids the rest of the time… sleep is for losers… but again double income families… and they got pensions like the teachers.
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I had always though Nurses were not allowed to work with the marriage ban but it appears not to be the case. I had always thought my mother, a nurse, would not get married as she would have lost her job ( a ward sister in a public hospital) and deferred getting married until after what I thought was a ban was lifted. There must have been some problem like demotion for nurses until marriage ban lifted. I always credited the marriage ban with my conception.

The marriage bar was abolished in the private sector in around 1977 although I understand there wasn't a legal marriage bar but it was often stipulated in terms of the employment contract.
 
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My dad still believes that his 3 daughters have been unlucky in their choice of husbands… actually no, 2 of us, the other is a nurse so work that needs to be done etc.

And he also still believes that I am taking a proper job (full time, good salary) away from a man trying to support a family.

Working part time in a shop would be ok, no family man needs that job.

But dad is a dinosaur. To be fair 3 level education was expected and carryon on to professional qualifications also. But that was education for the joy of it. And as for our poor humiliated husbands . Dunno how they cope.

But the few neighbours with working wives were somehow pitied and derided.
 
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