Cite as: 506 U. S. 263 (1993)
Stevens, J., dissenting
lishments,16 or pregnant women 17 may appropriately be characterized as "invidiously discriminatory" even if the decisionmakers have goals other than—or in addition to— discrimination against individual women.18
The second proposition deserves more than the Court's disdain. It plausibly describes an assumption that intent
proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life. The constitution of the family organization, which is founded in the divine ordinance, as well as in the nature of things, indicates the domestic sphere as that which properly belongs to the domain and functions of womanhood. The harmony, not to say identity, of interests and views which belong, or should belong, to the family institution is repugnant to the idea of a woman adopting a distinct and independent career from that of her husband. So firmly fixed was this sentiment in the founders of the common law that it became a maxim of that system of jurisprudence that a woman had no legal existence separate from her husband, who was regarded as her head and representative in the social state; and, notwithstanding some recent modifications of this civil status, many of the special rules of law flowing from and dependent upon this cardinal principle still exist in full force in most States. One of these is, that a married woman is incapable, without her husband's consent, of making contracts which shall be binding on her or him. . . .
". . . The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfil the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator." Id., at 141 (Bradley, J., joined by Swayne and Field, JJ., concurring in judgment).
The Justices who subscribed to those views were certainly not misogynists, but their basic attitude—or animus—toward women is appropriately characterized as "invidiously discriminatory."
16 See Goesaert v. Cleary, 335 U. S. 464 (1948). In a prescient dissenting opinion written in 1948 that accords with our current understanding of the idea of equality, Justice Rutledge appropriately selected the word "invidious" to characterize a statutory discrimination between male and female owners of liquor establishments. Id., at 468.
17 See Nashville Gas Co. v. Satty, 434 U. S. 136 (1977).
18 Last Term in Fort Gratiot Sanitary Landfill, Inc. v. Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources, 504 U. S. 353 (1992), we found that Michigan had discriminated against interstate commerce in garbage even though its statutory scheme discriminated against most of the landfill operators in Michigan as well as those located in other States.
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