Court Opinion

ID: 9427040
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:31.20512+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:03.869561
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stewart,
concurring in the judgment.
I cannot join the opinion of the Court. To hold, as the Court does, that the Wisconsin statute violates the Equal Protection Clause seems to me to misconceive the meaning of that constitutional guarantee. The Equal Protection Clause deals not with substantive rights or freedoms but with invidiously discriminatory classifications. San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1, 59 (concurring opinion). The paradigm of its violation is, of course, classification by race. McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184; Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 13 (concurring opinion).
Like almost any law, the Wisconsin statute now before us affects some people and does not affect others. But to say that it thereby creates “classifications” in the equal protection sense strikes me as little short of fantasy. The problem in this case is not one of discriminatory classifications, but of unwarranted encroachment upon a constitutionally protected *392freedom. I think that the Wisconsin statute is unconstitutional because it exceeds the bounds of permissible state regulation of marriage, and invades the sphere of liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
I
I do not agree with the Court that there is a “right to marry” in the constitutional sense. That right, or more accurately that privilege,1 is under our federal system peculiarly one to be defined and limited by state law. Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U. S. 393, 404. A State may not only “significantly interfere with decisions to enter into the marital relationship,” 2 but may in many circumstances absolutely prohibit it. Surely, for example, a State may legitimately say that no one can marry his or her sibling, that no one can marry who is not at least 14 years old, that no one can marry without first passing an examination for venereal disease, or that no one can marry who has a living husband or wife. But, just as surely, in regulating the intimate human relationship of marriage, there is a limit beyond which a State may not constitutionally go.
The Constitution does not specifically mention freedom to marry, but it is settled that the “liberty” protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment embraces more than those freedoms expressly enumerated in the Bill of Rights. See Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U. S. 232, 238-239; Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 534-535; Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 399—400. Cf. Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618, 629-630; United States v. Guest, 383 U. S. 745, 757-758; Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500, 505; Kent v. Dulles, 357 U. S. 116, 127; Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33, 41. And the decisions of this Court *393have made clear that freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties so protected. Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur, 414 U. S. 632, 639; Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, 152-153; Loving v. Virginia, supra, at 12; Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479, 485-486; Pierce v. Society of Sisters, supra; Meyer v. Nebraska, supra. See also Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158; Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U. S. 535, 541.
It is evident that the Wisconsin law now before us directly abridges that freedom. The question is whether the state interests that support the abridgment can overcome the substantive protections of the Constitution.
The Wisconsin law makes permission to marry turn on the payment of money in support of one’s children by a previous marriage or liaison. Those who cannot show both that they have kept up with their support obligations and that their children are not and will not become wards of the State are altogether prohibited from marrying.
If Wisconsin had said that no one could marry who had not paid all of the fines assessed against him for traffic violations, I suppose the constitutional invalidity of the law would be apparent. For while the state interest would certainly be legitimate, that interest would be both disproportionate and unrelated to the restriction of liberty imposed by the State. But the invalidity of the law before us is hardly SO' clear, because its restriction of liberty seems largely to be imposed only on those who have abused the same liberty in the past.
Looked at in one way, the law may be seen as simply a collection device additional to those used by Wisconsin and other States for enforcing parental support obligations. But since it operates by denying permission to marry, it also clearly reflects a legislative judgment that a person should not be permitted to incur new family financial obligations until he has fulfilled those he already has. Insofar as this judgment is paternalistic rather than punitive, it manifests a concern *394for the economic well-being of a prospective marital household. These interests are legitimate concerns of the State. But it does not follow that they justify the absolute deprivation of the benefits of a legal marriage.
On several occasions this Court has held that a person’s inability to pay money demanded by the State does not justify the total deprivation of a constitutionally protected liberty. In Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U. S. 371, the Court held that the State’s legitimate purposes in collecting filing fees for divorce actions were insufficient under the Due Process Clause to deprive the indigent of access to the courts where that access was necessary to dissolve the marital relationship. In Tate v. Short, 401 U. S. 395, and Williams v. Illinois, 399 U. S. 235, the Court held that an indigent offender could not have his term of imprisonment increased, and his liberty curtailed, simply by reason of his inability to pay a fine.
The principle of those cases applies here as well. The Wisconsin law makes no allowance for the truly indigent. The State flatly denies a marriage license to anyone who cannot afford to fulfill his support obligations and keep his children from becoming wards of the State. We may assume that the State has legitimate interests in collecting delinquent support payments and in reducing its welfare load. We may also assume that, as applied to those who can afford to meet the statute’s financial requirements but choose not to do so-, the law advances the State’s objectives in ways superior to other means available to the State. The fact remains that some people simply cannot afford to meet the statute’s financial requirements. To deny these people permission to marry penalizes them for failing to do that which they cannot do. Insofar as it applies to indigents, the state law is an irrational means of achieving these objectives of the State.
As directed against either the indigent or the delinquent parent, the law is substantially more rational if viewed as a means of assuring the financial viability of future' marriages. *395In this context, it reflects a plausible judgment that those who have not fulfilled their financial obligations and have not kept their children off the welfare rolls in the past are likely to encounter similar difficulties in the future. But the State’s legitimate concern with the financial soundness of prospective marriages must stop short of telling people they may not marry because they are too poor or because they might persist in their financial irresponsibility. The invasion of constitutionally protected liberty and the chance of erroneous prediction are simply too great. A legislative judgment so alien to our traditions and so offensive to our shared notions of fairness offends the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
II
In an opinion of the Court half a century ago, Mr. Justice Holmes described an equal protection claim as “the usual last resort of constitutional arguments.” Buck v. Bell, 274 U. S. 200, 208. Today equal protection doctrine has become the Court’s chief instrument for invalidating state laws. Yet, in a case like this one, the doctrine is no more than substantive due process by another name.
Although the Court purports to examine the bases for legislative classifications and to compare the treatment of legislatively defined groups, it actually erects substantive limitations on what States may do. Thus, the effect of the Court’s decision in this case is not to require Wisconsin to draw its legislative classifications with greater precision or to afford similar treatment to similarly situated persons. Rather, the message of the Court’s op/inion is that Wisconsin may not use its control over marriage to achieve the objectives of the state statute. Such restrictions on basic governmental power are at the heart of substantive due process.
The Court is understandably reluctant to rely on substantive due process. See Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. at 167-168 (concurring opinion). But to embrace the essence of that doctrine under the guise of equal protection serves no purpose *396but obfuscation. “ [C] ouched in slogans and ringing phrases,” the Court’s equal protection doctrine shifts the focus of the judicial inquiry away from its proper concerns, which include “the nature of the individual interest affected, the extent to which it is affected, the rationality of the connection between legislative means and purpose, the existence of alternative means for effectuating the purpose, and the degree of confidence we may have that the statute reflects the legislative concern for the purpose that would legitimately support the means chosen.” Williams v. Illinois, supra, at 260 (Harlan, J., concurring in result).
To conceal this appropriate inquiry invites mechanical or thoughtless application of misfocused doctrine. To bring it into the open forces a healthy and responsible recognition of the nature and purpose of the extreme power we wield when, in invalidating a state law in the name of the Constitution, we invalidate pro tanto the process of representative democracy in one of the sovereign States of the Union.

 See Hohfeld, Some Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning, 23 Yale L. J. 16 (1913).

 See ante, at 386.