United States Supreme Court, 1885, Murphy v Ramsey, 144 US 15, 45

“”Certainly no legislation can be supposed more wholesome and necessary in the founding of a free, self-governing commonwealth..than that which seeks to establish it on the basis of the idea of the family, as consisting in and springing from THE UNION FOR LIFE OF ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN IN THE HOLY STATE OF MATRIMONY; [the family] is the sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization; the best guarantee of that reverent morality which is the source of all beneficient progress in social and political improvement.”