[Anglican Communion News Service] A change in the law to allow the names of couples’ mothers to be included in the official registers of marriages in England and Wales is a step closer after a Church of England bishop successfully steered a bill through its second reading in the House of Lords – the upper house of the British Parliament. At present, marriage registers include only the name of the couple’s fathers. The bishop of St. Albans, Alan Smith, described this as “a clear and historic injustice” and “an archaic practice and unchanged since Victorian times, when children were seen as a father’s property and little consideration was given to a mother’s role in raising them.”

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