Kate Middleton followed steps of her mother-in-law Princess Diana when she changed her wedding vows to appear “equal” to her husband.
The Princess of Wales was 29 when she tied the knot with Prince William in April 2011, and made the decision to alter the traditional royal vow to “obey”. She repeated a move made by Diana, who was the first royal bride to tweak the classic vows when she got married to Charles.
Instead of mentioning the word “obey”, both Kate and the late Diana promised to “love, comfort, honour and keep”. The decision to remove “obey” was reported prior to their William and Kate’s wedding day with the announcement that they wanted to decide themselves what they want to say in their vows.
William and Kate selected the Series One (1966) Book of Common Prayer ceremony which allows the bride to drop “obey him” and “serve him” from the religious proceedings. At her wedding to Charles in 1981, the late Princess Diana ditched the royal protocol of saying obey that had been used by the late Queen, Princess Margaret and the Princess Royal among others.
The Duchess of York and the Duchess of Edinburgh both said ‘obey’ in their wedding vows. However Meghan Markle made the decision to not include the word in her wedding vows in 2018.
Speaking prior to Kate and William’s wedding, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams praised the couple over the words they used in their vows.
He told the Mirror: “I’ve been very struck by the way in which William and Catherine have approached this great event. They’ve thought through what they want for themselves, but also what they want to say. They have a very simple, very direct picture of what really matters about this event. The couple are believed to have ditched tradition and the word ‘obey’ because after knowing each other for a decade – first at university – they treat each other very much as equals.”
Kate and William, who now have three children – Prince George, 10, Princess Charlotte, eight, and Prince Louis, six, will celebrate their 13th wedding anniversary which they are set to do privately. Kate recently revealed that she was undergoing preventive chemotherapy for an undisclosed form of cancer and is currently convalescing, while William has now returned to public engagements after spending a private Easter with his family.
