WASHINGTON STATEWIDE ORGANIZATION OF STEPPARENTS еt al, Appellants, v. SIDNEY E. SMITH, as Secretary of the Department of Social and Health Services et al, Respondents.
No. 43188
En Banc.
June 19, 1975.
Petition for rehearing denied August 12, 1975.
85 Wn.2d 564
Slade Gorton, Attorney General, and Walter E. White, Assistant, for respondents.
ROSELLINI, J.—In this class action, the appellants ask the court to hold that the provisions of
The expenses of the family and the education of the children, including stepchildren, are chargeable upon the property of both husband and wife, or either of them, and in relation thereto they may be sued jointly or separately: Provided, That with regard to stepchildren, the obligation shall ceasе upon the termination of the relationship of husband and wife.
(b) [w]ilfully omits, without lawful excuse, to furnish necessary food, clothing, shelter, or medical attendance for his or her child or stepchild or children or stepchildren or ward or wards: Provided, That with regard to stepchildren the obligation shall cease upon termination of the relationship of husband and wife;
shall be guilty of a felony if there is a child under 16 years of age, or of a misdemeanor if there is no child under 16.
The duty of support was imposed upon stepparents in Laws of 1969, 1st Ex. Sess., ch. 207, §§ 1-2. The appellants
The New York cases, we find, are out of harmony with the general rule and with this court‘s only pronouncement upon the subject which the research of counsel and this court has revealed. In Maynard v. Hill, 2 Wash. Terr. 321, 327, 5 P. 717 (1884), aff‘d, 125 U.S. 190, 31 L. Ed. 654, 8 S. Ct. 723 (1888), it was contended as it is here that marriage is a contract, the obligations of which are protected by the federal constitution. This court said:
And it has been so often decided that such relation is a status rather than a contract, and that the vested rights therein, if any, must yield to the public interest in the regulation and control of such status, and the opinions therein rendered have been so numerous and able, that we content ourselves with a reference to a few of such decisions, from which it will appear that the marriage relation is not a contract, within the meaning of the constitutional restrictions above referred to.
While we have not had occasion to cite the case again upon the point, we have cited it upon a related point in Loomis v. Loomis, 47 Wn.2d 468, 288 P.2d 235 (1955); and Tupper v. Tupper, 63 Wn.2d 585, 388 P.2d 225 (1964). In the latter case we again recognized that marriage is a status.
Maynard v. Hill, supra, will be found cited as a leading case in 52 Am. Jur. 2d Marriage § 6 (1970), and in a
The following quotations from legal writers and judicial opinions illustrate the universal opinion that the marriage relation is a status, and that the act of contracting marriage results in a change of status.
“Marriage has been well said to be something more than a contract, either religious or civil; to be an institution.” Marriage is a state or relation, depending for its existence upon the fact of parties competent to contract the relation, and their legal, voluntary, present consent to do so, with such formalities as the law of the place requires for its valid solemnization.” When the contracting parties have entered into the mаrried state, they have not so much entered into a contract as into a new relation, the rights, duties, and obligations of which rest, not upon their agreement, but upon the general law of the state, statutory or common, which defines and prescribes those rights, duties, and obligations. They are of law, not of contract. It was a contract that the relation should be established, but, being established, the power of the parties, as to its extent or duration, is at an end. Their rights under it are determined by the will of the sovereign, as evidenced by the law. They can neither be modified nor changed by any agreement of parties.” “Marriage is not a contract, but one of the domestic relations. In strictness, though formed by contract, it signifies the relation of husband and wife, deriving both its rights and duties from a source higher than any contract of which the parties are capable, and, as to these, uncontrollable by
any contract which they can make. When formed, this relation is no more a contract than ‘fatherhood’ or ‘sonship’ is a contract.” (Footnotes omitted.)
The legislature, in the remainder of
If the appellants’ theory were correct, none of these new provisions would apply to marriages entered into before their enactment. It is immediately apparent why thе courts in most jurisdictions have consistently held that, while marriage is entered into by contract, the legal duties and rights of the parties with respect to the marriage relationship are determined by statute and may be altered by the legislature after the marriage is contracted. We adhere to that view.
The appellants point out that the statutes contain no language evidencing аn intent that they should have retroactive effect. We agree. The statutes apply prospectively only. They impose no penalties for past omissions. They do, however, impose a duty upon stepparents from and after their effective date.
Regulations of the Department of Social and Health Services, since the enactment of
The appellants concede the applicable rulе to be that a legislative classification will be sustained if there is in fact a reasonable basis for the distinction. Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 25 L. Ed. 2d 491, 90 S. Ct. 1153 (1970), rehearing denied, 398 U.S. 914, 26 L. Ed. 2d 80, 90 S. Ct. 1684 (1970). In that case the United States Supreme Court upheld a state welfare program which placed a ceiling upon the amount of aid which any one family could receive per month. The result of this policy was that children in large families received less per capita than children in small families. The court found a reasonable basis for the discrimination in the state‘s interest in encouraging employment and in avoiding discrimination between welfare families and families of the working poor.
The department could reasonably have considered the fact that where a mother has remarried, her husband has made a serious commitment to her аnd it can therefore be assumed that his earnings will be available to meet the needs of the children, as well as the needs of his wife, upon a fairly stable basis, whereas such a presumption would not be justified where the mother is maintaining a meretricious relationship. The department also could reasonably assume that a man who is willing to marry the mother of young children is willing to take an interest in thеm and act as a substitute father to them, an assumption not ordinarily justified where there is no marriage relationship. Also, the difficulty of administering the kind of regulation proposed by the appellants may well have been a factor which the
The appellants contend that children of a divorced mother who keeps them in a home where there is an employed man living without benefit of marriage certificate may receive more support from that man than children having a stepparent living in the home, and that this will result in a disadvantage to such children. This pоssibility may be conceded, but it does not mean that the provisions in question contravene the equal protection clause in the United States Constitution, or article 1, section 12, of the Washington State Constitution. As the court said in Dandridge v. Williams, supra, the equal protection clause does not require that a state must choose between attacking every aspect of a problem or not attaсking the problem at all.
The appellants urge that the statutes and the regulations made pursuant thereto will discourage men from marrying mothers of young children, that they will tend to be destructive of the family institution, and are therefore contrary to public policy. Being patently a policy argument, this contention is relevant, not to the constitutionality but to the wisdom of the statutes, and should be addrеssed to the legislature.
The Superior Court did not err in dismissing the action. The judgment is affirmed.
STAFFORD, C.J., and FINLEY, HUNTER, HAMILTON, WRIGHT, and BRACHTENBACH, JJ., concur.
UTTER, J. (concurring)—Although I agree with the majority‘s conclusion, I reach it through a slightly different analysis of the equal protection issues. I do not believe that the “minimum rationality” standard of review is unambigu-
The interests of children in receiving statutorily authorized welfare payments is literally, if not legally, fundamental. Recent equal protection jurisprudence has recognized that a higher level of scrutiny should be given to classifications affecting such interests than is appropriate in the review of business or economic regulation: they should be upheld if, but only if, they bear a ” ‘fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation.’ ” Kahn v. Shevin, 416 U.S. 351, 355, 40 L. Ed. 2d 189, 94 S. Ct. 1734 (1974); Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 520-22, 25 L. Ed. 2d 491, 90 S. Ct. 1153 (1970) (Marshall, J., dissenting); see generally Gunther, Foreword: In Search of Evolving Doctrine on a Changing Court: A Model for a Newer Equal Protection, 86 Harv. L. Rev. 1 (1972). Although the Supreme Court has not explicitly declared that this newly-developed equal protection analysis is triggered by discriminatory classifications in social welfare legislation, it has indicаted that the absolute “minimum rationality” test, which, in effect, “suspend[s] the operation of the Equal Protection Clause,” is no longer applicable in this area. Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528, 539, 39 L. Ed. 2d 577, 94 S. Ct. 1372 (1974); cf. Jimenez v. Weinberger, 417 U.S. 628, 41 L. Ed. 2d 363, 94 S. Ct. 2496 (1974). And even if minimal scrutiny were permitted under federal law, I would require more under
I find, however, that the laws appellants challenge are justifiable even under this heightened standard of review. The only statutory discrimination appellants seriously attack is that between children with stepparents and children in households where a person lives with, but is not married to, their natural parents. But this classification conforms to, indeed results from, those provisions of RCW Title 26 which рlace an enforceable legal obligation on stepparents
Essentially, what the system created by the statutes and regulations attacked here does is treat stepparents like natural parents. Appellants argue that stepparents and their stepchildren are treated more harshly than natural parents and their children by these laws, urging that stepparents are likely to have outside support obligations from former marriages which render the receipts of 100 hours of work per month (the cut-off level for AFDC-E eligibility under WAC 388-24-135) inadequate to support their stepchildren. But there is no reason to believe that natural parents are not just as likely as stepparents to have support obligations arising out of previous marriages. The possibility of outside support obligations is taken into account in the computation of need under WAC 388-28-560(1), although it is not a factor in the determination of eligibility. Whether the exclusion of this factor is wise or fair is not an issue before this court on this appeal; the sole question raised by appellants is answered by the fact that, right or wrong, it operates equally with respect to stepparents and natural parents, and the children thereof.
Indeed, if anything, two aspects of the statutory scheme would seem to favor stepparents and their children over natural parents with a number of dependents. The obligatiоn to support children lies jointly and severally on stepparents and absent natural parents (State v. Finister, 5 Wn. App. 44, 48, 486 P.2d 114 (1971)), giving children with stepparents two possible sources of support, while children
For these reasons, I find that, although discrimination in this area requires something more than the minimal justification demanded for business and economic regulation, the statutory differentiations challenged by appellants survive constitutional scrutiny. I therefore concur in the decision of the majority.
HOROWITZ, J., concurs with UTTER, J.
Petition for rehearing denied August 12, 1975.