Many laws in the history of the United States have addressed marriage and the rights of married people. Common themes addressed by these laws include polygamy, interracial marriage, divorce, and same-sex marriage.
1900–1999
1900 – All states now grant married women the right to own property in their own name. 1904 – LDS Church President Joseph F. Smith issues the 1904 "Second Manifesto", which stated that the church was no longer sanctioning plural (polygamous) marriages and would excommunicate anyone who participates in future polygamy. 1907 – Under the Expatriation Act of 1907, American women will lose citizenship when they marry a foreign husband. 1913 – The federal government formally recognizes marriage in law for the first time with the passage of the Revenue Act of 1913. 1929 – All states now have laws regarding marriage licenses. 1933 – Married women granted right to citizenship independent of their husbands. 1948 – California Supreme Court overturns interracial marriage ban (Perez v. Sharp). 1965 – The Supreme Court overturns laws prohibiting married couples from using contraception (Griswold v. Connecticut). 1967 – The Supreme Court overturns laws prohibiting interracial couples from marrying (Loving v. Virginia). 1969 – The first no-fault divorce law, signed by Governor Ronald Reagan, is adopted in California. 1971 – The Supreme Court upholds an Alabama law which automatically changes a woman's legal surname to that of her husband upon marriage. 1971 – The Supreme Court refuses to hear challenge to a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling allowing prohibition of same-sex marriage (Baker v. Nelson). 1972 – The Supreme Court overturns laws prohibiting unmarried couples from purchasing contraception (Eisenstadt v. Baird). 1973 – Maryland becomes the first state in the U.S. to define marriage as "between a man and a woman" in statute. 1975 – Married women allowed to have credit in their own name. 1975 – Three states outlaw same-sex marriage by statutes. 1976 – The Supreme Court overturns laws prohibiting abortions for married women without the consent of the husband. 1993 – All 50 states have revised laws to include marital rape. 1996 – President Bill Clinton signs the Defense of Marriage Act into law, which outlaws federal recognition of both same-sex marriage and polygamy, and removes any requirement that states recognize such marriages entered into in other jurisdictions. 1998 – Hawaii amends its constitution to allow the legislature to ban same-sex marriage, in response to a court ruling which would otherwise have allowed such marriages. Alaska becomes the first state to ban both same-sex marriage and polygamy in its constitution. 1998 – South Carolina is the penultimate state in the U.S. to remove the ban on interracial marriage in its state constitution.