Ireland said Tuesday, December 5, it will hold two referendums on International Women's Day on March 8 to amend decades-old constitutional references to women "in the home" and the "family." The proposed amendment would remove references in the 1937 Constitution to a woman's "life within the home" and replace it with non-gender specific language, Taoiseach (prime minister) Leo Varadkar told reporters in Dublin.

Ireland's Constitution was written when Catholicism held sway over public and private life. Article 41.2 of the Constitution specifies that "by her life within the home, woman gives to the state a support without which the common good cannot be achieved." It adds that "mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home."

The existing wording "no longer reflects modern life" said Micheál Martin, the deputy prime minister, or tánaiste. He called it "outdated" language. Equality Minister Roderic O'Gorman told reporters that the "archaic" and "sexist" reference to a woman in the home "has contributed nothing."

Another clause that refers to the family would also be amended so that constitutional protection is not limited to marital families. That change would "acknowledge that families may also be founded on other lasting relationships, other than marriage," said Varadkar. For example, a family which is headed by a lone parent or a family headed by grandparents or guardians, he said.

In recent years, Ireland voted by large majorities in referendums to open up abortion laws and allow same-sex marriage. Before the vote on same-sex marriage, Varadkar came out publicly as gay.

Final wording of the two votes is expected to be approved by the government on Thursday.