Because the Arkansas marriage laws restrict the Jernigans and Austins' fundamental right to marry, these laws are subject to strict scrutiny. This standard for examining the Arkansas laws at issue, which significantly interfere with a fundamental right, is consistent with what the Supreme Court has said in past cases. Nevertheless, “[b]y reaffirming the fundamental character of the right to marry, [the Court] do[es] not mean to suggest that every state regulation which relates in any way to the incidents of or prerequisites for marriage must be subjected to rigorous scrutiny. To the contrary, reasonable regulations that do not significantly interfere with decisions to enter into the marital relationship may be legitimately imposed.”
Zablocki, 434 U.S. at 386, 98 S.Ct. 673. In
Zablocki, in his concurrence, Justice Stewart explained that a State may significantly interfere with or even prohibit marriage if the regulation doing so passes strict scrutiny: “for example, a State may legitimately say that no one can marry his or her sibling, that no one can marry who is not at least 14 years old, that no one can marry without first passing an examination for
venereal disease, or that no one can marry who has a living husband or wife.”
Id. at 392, 98 S.Ct. 673 (Stewart, J., concurring);
see also Bruning, 455 F.3d at 867. Justice Stewart also recognized, however, that “just as surely, in regulating the intimate human relationship of marriage, there is a limit beyond which a State may not constitutionally go.”
Zablocki, 434 U.S. at 392, 98 S.Ct. 673 (Stewart, J., concurring);
see also Lawson, 58 F.Supp.3d at 931–33, , at *6–7 (discussing other state regulations on marriage examined and upheld by the Supreme Court).