Under a new law, sons and daughters of British monarchs will have equal rights to the throne. What this means for the recently married Prince William and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, is that if their first child is a daughter, she will have claim to the throne ahead of any younger brothers. The leaders of the 16 Commonwealth countries approved unanimously to the change, though the governments over those countries must agree as well before it can take effect.
Another constitutional change proposed is that a future British monarch be allowed to marry a Catholic. Currently, monarchs are allowed to marry someone of any faith except Catholic, a holdover from historic attitudes between Catholics and the Church of England. Prime Minister David Cameron expressed his approval of the change. “The idea that a younger son should become monarch instead of an elder daughter simply because he is a man, or that a future monarch can marry someone of any faith except a Catholic — this way of thinking is at odds with the modern countries that we have become,” he said.
