Citizenship, Alienage, And The Modern Constitutional State: A Gendered History
by Helen Irving /
2016 / English / PDF
2.6 MB Download
To have a nationality is a human right. But between the nineteenth
and mid-twentieth centuries, virtually every country in the world
adopted laws that stripped citizenship from women who married
foreign men. Despite the resulting hardships and even statelessness
experienced by married women, it took until 1957 for the
international community to condemn the practice, with the adoption
of the United Nations Convention on the Nationality of Married
Women. Citizenship, Alienage, and the Modern Constitutional State
tells the important yet neglected story of marital denaturalization
from a comparative perspective. Examining denaturalization laws and
their impact on women around the world, with a focus on Australia,
Britain, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States, it
advances a concept of citizenship as profoundly personal and
existential. In doing so, it sheds light on both a specific chapter
of legal history and the theory of citizenship in general.
To have a nationality is a human right. But between the nineteenth
and mid-twentieth centuries, virtually every country in the world
adopted laws that stripped citizenship from women who married
foreign men. Despite the resulting hardships and even statelessness
experienced by married women, it took until 1957 for the
international community to condemn the practice, with the adoption
of the United Nations Convention on the Nationality of Married
Women. Citizenship, Alienage, and the Modern Constitutional State
tells the important yet neglected story of marital denaturalization
from a comparative perspective. Examining denaturalization laws and
their impact on women around the world, with a focus on Australia,
Britain, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States, it
advances a concept of citizenship as profoundly personal and
existential. In doing so, it sheds light on both a specific chapter
of legal history and the theory of citizenship in general.