Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-376_7l48.pdf
Page Number: 129.0

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

7 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

area of Indian affairs.  Dick v. United States, 208 U. S. 340, 
353  (1908)  (Congress’s  primacy  over  Indian  tribes  and 
States’ “full and complete jurisdiction over all persons and 
things within [their] limits” are “fundamental principles . . . 
of equal dignity, and neither must be so enforced as to nul-
lify or substantially impair the other”).

While  we  have  never  comprehensively  enumerated  the
States’ reserved powers, we have long recognized that gov-
ernance  of  family  relations—including  marriage  relation-
ships and child custody—is among them.  It is not merely
that  these  matters  “have  traditionally  been  governed  by
state law” or that the responsibility over them “remains pri-
marily with the States,” ante, at 14 (majority opinion), but 
that the field of domestic relations “has long been regarded 
as  a  virtually  exclusive  province  of  the  States,”  Sosna  v. 
Iowa,  419  U. S.  393,  404  (1975)  (emphasis  added).    “The 
whole subject of the domestic relations of husband and wife, 
parent and child, belongs to the laws of the States, and not
to the laws of the United States.”  In re Burrus, 136 U. S. 
586, 593–594 (1890).  “Cases decided by this Court over a 
period of more than a century bear witness to this historical
fact.”  Sosna, 419 U. S., at 404.  See, e.g., United States v. 
Windsor,  570  U. S.  744,  766  (2013);  McCarty  v.  McCarty, 
453 U. S. 210, 220 (1981); Simms v. Simms, 175 U. S. 162, 
167  (1899);  Pennoyer  v.  Neff,  95  U. S.  714,  722,  734–735 
(1878).

This does not mean that federal law may never touch on
family matters.  As the majority observes, ante, at 14, we 
have  held  that  federal  legislation  that  regulates  certain 
“economic aspects of domestic relations” can preempt con-
flicting state law.  Ridgway v. Ridgway, 454 U. S. 46, 55– 
56 (1981) (providing an order of precedence for beneficiaries 
of a service member’s life insurance policy); see, e.g., Hill-
man v. Maretta, 569 U. S. 483, 485–486 (2013) (allocating 
federal death benefits); McCarty, 453 U. S., at 211, 235–236 
(allocating  military  retirement  pay).  But  we  have  never