Mothers to be added to marriage certs

[ArabellaScott]

(England and Wales)

'Mothers of brides and grooms in England and Wales will now be added to marriage certificates for the first time.

Until now, the document only included the names of the fathers of the couple, but a change to the Marriage Act means both parents will be included.'

Hooray for the mothers of the brides! And grooms! About bloody time all these invisible women were acknowledged.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56975357

[Dimpsey]

I'm wondering whether they could add this detail retrospectively. About 20 years after we married we got a spelling mistake in my husband's name corrected so I know they can change the records and issue a new marriage certificate.

[MarieIVanArkleStinks]

About bloody time! The fact that is so incredible is that it's really taken them until 2021 to do this. Mind blowing.

[MeadowHay]

I doubt they'd allow that Dimpsey, I'd imagine they would see it as a potentially large extra administrative burden. Good question though, I would definitely love to get mine altered if that were possible.

[GNCQ]

Huh.
Under Boris's Tories?

How many different mothers will be on his children's wedding certificates I wonder!

[GiantKitten]

@GNCQ

Huh.
Under Boris's Tories?

How many different mothers will be on his children's wedding certificates I wonder!

Only one on each one...

[Vargas]

Great news and about bloody time!

[stickygotstuck]

You mean this wasn't the case already??

I thought this had been changed a few years ago, or were they just talking about it all this time? Not that there's a lot to talk about anyway.

[AssassinatedBeauty]

It's been talked about and promised for a long while, but always got kicked into the long grass as somehow to difficult to achieve. I am glad it has now been done, but at least 25 years too late IMO.

[Lougle]

We had the mothers as witnesses to the wedding so all 4 names were on there.

[Doomsdayiscoming]

From article:

“The Home Office said the move would "correct a historic anomaly”

I found this disturbing. Anomaly? This would suggest it was a mistake, an oversight.

This was the patriarchy being the patriarchy.

It’s pretty disgusting that even when these changes are made, the true nature of the motive is being muddied to somehow deflect from the patriarchy.

[SimonJT]

The differening wedding laws in England v the rest of the UK is weird. I wonder if this will also lead to other positive changes in England, such as getting married outside, humanist ceremonies being legal etc.

I don’t have my fathers name on mine, which is fine and allowed, but I was then asked if I would like a step dads name on it, no I most definitely wouldn’t. But insane that I could have just put a random mans name on there as proof of a step dad wasn’t asked for. I was tempted to give the name of the person who is the closest thing to a parent as she has a unisex name, but I wasn’t brave enough.

[MeadowHay]

Being honest, me and DH were 19 when we got married. I don't think it even occurred to us that we weren't compelled to have our fathers names on the certificate. Neither of our fathers supported our marriage at that stage and DH's actually totally disowned him because of it - I'm not sure he would have put his father's name on it if it had occurred to him that he didn't have to.

[LadyJaye]

I'm Scottish, so I was quite shocked when I learned a few years ago that this was the case in E&W.

As they say, the sire's side may be questionable, but you can generally be pretty sure who your mother is...

[Cwenthryth]

About bloody time too. IIRC wasn’t this started under Theresa May? They updated to an electronic system first (otherwise something about replacing physical register books would have been an unreasonable administrative system) and then they could change the details we record and include mothers’ names.

More info here commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7516/

[Mrspopper]

We got married today. My mum was a witness... yippeeeee

[NonnyMouse1337]

Brilliant. About time.