38. This principle might well be carried over into a new British Citizenship. But in the case of a joint adoption, it should suffice if either parent was a British Citizen. This would be in line with the Government's general policy of working towards equal treatment of the sexes.
(c) Citizenship by descent
So
39. Under the United Kingdom law, as mentioned above, everyone who is born here is automatically a citizen. the only people who are citizens by descent in our law are people born abroad who have some link with this country
through their fathers, which gives them a claim to our citizen- ship. In looking to the future, there are two main issues to be considered. First, whether the present inability of a woman to transmit her citizenship to her children born abroad can be justified. Second, how far citizenship by descent should be allowed to go that is, how many successive generations born abroad should be allowed to have our citizenship.
Descent through the female line
40.
In the past, nearly all countries allowed only men citizens to transmit their citizenship to their children born abroad.
This was based on two arguments. First, countries were reluctant to see dual nationality proliferate as would happen when
nationals of two countries married and both were able to transmit
their citizenship to their children. Second, in such 'mixed' marriages it was thought that the man's occupation was crucial in deciding where the family would live. The man would tend to work in his own country rather than his wife's; the family home would therefore be established there; the children of the marriage would grow up there and would inevitably associate themselves more strongly with their father's country than with
their mother's.
41.
As to the first of these arguments, the United Kingdom has
adopted a very tolerant attitude to dual nationality. The second argument is certainly no longer so powerful or so generally
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