(Image source: The British Monarchy on Flickr)

BY MIKKEL NOEL LANZKY
 

ANCHOR ERICA COGHILL

The British monarchy gets into sync with the times on equality between the sexes. At the Commonwealth conference in Australia, the 16 states who share Queen Elizabeth II as head of state, agreed to end preference of younger boys over elder girls.
Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron made the announcement:

"I'm very pleased to say that we've reached a unanimous agreement on changes to the rules of succession. We will end the male primogeniture rule so that in future the order of succession should be determined simply by order of birth."

The changes will take effect for heirs of Prince William. If his firstborn is a girl, she will now come before her younger brothers in the order of succession. More queens will be a good thing, thinks the National Post’s Kelly McParland:

“The best-known kings tend to be famed either for wars, usurpations, excess marriages, outrages or incompetence.  [...] The women, on the other hand, are associated with expanding and strengthening the nation; spreading its language, laws and culture  around the globe; and providing solid, reliable leadership through some of its most crucial times.

While many are enthused over the news, there are no roses without thorns. In an editorial, the Guardian chides that “monarchy and equality are incompatible bedfellows,” adding:

“Merely setting out these changes highlights their absurdity. These are concessions so overdue that already they feel trivial. Meanwhile, once again, a government has ducked the opportunity to address the great injustice at the heart of the British monarchy [...] the requirement that all future monarchs be Protestant.”

The Commonwealth conference also agreed to scrap another rule that bans an heir to the throne from marrying a Catholic. A blogger for Foreign Policy notes that while the changes denote progress, the institution of monarchy itself is still an “anachronistic, medieval institution”:

“One might argue that pretending that a family of not-particularly noteworthy people are the divinely appointed rulers not only of Britain, but of 15 other countries that used to be part of its empire, is also somewhat outdated. But still, good news for aspiring Catholic princesses of the Commonwealth.”

In changing the rules of succession, the Commonwealth states join a growing list of monarchies adapting to changing social attitudes of their populations. Sweden made a similar rule change in 1979, Norway in 1990, and Denmark in 2009.

Transcript by Newsy.