New legislation proposed in the House would remove the words “husband” and “wife” from federal law and replace them with a range of terms such as “spouse.”
The “Amend the Code for Marriage Equality Act,” introduced by California Democrat Julia Brownley, seeks to amend a number of existing laws by striking the terms “husband” and “wife” from their text. The proposed legislation moves to substitute the words with phrases such as “a married couple,” “married person” and “person who has been, but is no longer, married to’’ depending on the context.