Festschrift für Wolfgang Zeidler

Book Chapter Donald P. Kommers, Marriage and the Family in American Constitutional Law, in Festschrift für Wolfgang Zeidler 805 (Dieter Umbach ed., 1987) In the light of Justice Zeidler\u27s professional interest in the subject of marriage and the family under the Bonn Constitution, it seems particularly fitting on this occasion to consider several leading decisions of the United States Supreme Court in this same field. As it is well known, however, the American Constitution, unlike the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany, contains no explicit reference to marriage or family. Yet the Supreme Court has long recognized that the right to marry and raise a family is a fundamental liberty protected by the United States Constitution. The purposes of this short essay are (1) to identify the constitutional basis of this liberty, (2) to consider some of its present-day applications, and (3) to assess the Supreme Court\u27s jurisprudence in the realm of marriage and the family.https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_books/1340/thumbnail.jp