accepted.
Family patterns are altering; the woman's
interests can be as important as the man's in deciding where the family home should be; in any case, families are more mobile. These changes have led a number of countries, including West Germany, Canada and the USA, to permit their women citizens to transmit their citizenship on broadly the same terms as men. In the United Kingdom much has been done to end discrimination on grounds of sex, and the opportunity should be taken to do so in nationality law by changing the rules for citizenship by descent in a new scheme of citizen-
ship.
42.
There are, however, some practical problems. It would not be difficult to legislate so that, from a certain date,
women could transmit their citizenship on the same terms as
men to children born after that date. But what about the
children born before that date? Should they be granted citizenship and if so, how?
43. To designate them all automatically as citizens, especially
if the citizenship was back-dated to their birth, would cause difficulties. They might not want to take our citizenship; they might find that they had lost their other citizenship by having our citizenship thrust upon them. An alternative favoured by the Government would be to enable a mother who
has become a British Citizen, to apply for her citizenship for her children. They would then hold this citizenship from the date the application was granted. This arrangement might be for a limited period, say two years; this has been the practice in other countries which have changed their law recently in this way (eg Canada and West Germany).
The limits of citizenship by descent
44.
Our present law not only confines to men the right to transmit citizenship, it also imposes conditions on the transmission of citizenship. There is no restriction on men citizens from this country transmitting their citizenship to
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