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16 

OBERGEFELL v. HODGES 

Opinion of the Court 

precedent  protecting  the  right  of  a  married  couple  not  to
procreate,  it  cannot  be  said  the  Court  or  the  States  have 
conditioned the right to marry on the capacity or commit-
ment to procreate.  The constitutional marriage right has 
many aspects, of which childbearing is only one. 

Fourth  and  finally,  this  Court’s  cases  and  the  Nation’s
traditions  make  clear  that  marriage  is  a  keystone  of  our
social  order.  Alexis  de  Tocqueville  recognized  this  truth
on  his  travels  through  the  United  States  almost  two  cen-
turies ago: 

“There is certainly no country in the world where the 
tie of marriage is so much respected as in America . . . 
[W]hen the American retires from the turmoil of pub-
lic life to the bosom of his family, he finds in it the im-
age of order and of peace . . . . [H]e afterwards carries 
[that  image]  with  him  into  public  affairs.”    1  Democ- 
racy in America 309 (H. Reeve transl., rev. ed. 1990). 

In  Maynard  v.  Hill,  125  U. S.  190,  211  (1888),  the  Court 
echoed  de  Tocqueville,  explaining  that  marriage  is  “the 
foundation  of  the  family  and  of  society,  without  which
there  would  be  neither  civilization  nor  progress.”  Mar-
riage,  the  Maynard  Court  said,  has  long  been  “ ‘a  great
public  institution,  giving  character  to  our  whole  civil 
polity.’ ”  Id., at 213.  This idea has been reiterated even as 
the institution has evolved in substantial ways over time, 
superseding rules related to parental consent, gender, and 
race once thought by many to be essential.  See generally
N. Cott, Public Vows.  Marriage remains a building block 
of our national community.

For  that  reason,  just  as  a  couple  vows  to  support  each
other, so does society pledge to support the couple, offering
symbolic  recognition  and  material  benefits  to  protect  and 
nourish the union. Indeed, while the States are in general
free  to  vary  the  benefits  they  confer  on  all  married  cou-
ples, they have throughout our history made marriage the