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Rh area of Indian affairs. Dick v. United States, 208 U. S. 340, 353 (1908) (Congress’s primacy over Indian tribes and States’ “full and complete jurisdiction over all persons and things within [their] limits” are “fundamental principles … of equal dignity, and neither must be so enforced as to nullify or substantially impair the other”).

While we have never comprehensively enumerated the States’ reserved powers, we have long recognized that governance of family relations—including marriage relationships and child custody—is among them. It is not merely that these matters “have traditionally been governed by state law” or that the responsibility over them “remains primarily with the States,” (majority opinion), but that the field of domestic relations “has long been regarded as a virtually exclusive province of the States,” Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U. S. 393, 404 (1975) (emphasis added). “The whole subject of the domestic relations of husband and wife, parent and child, belongs to the laws of the States, and not to the laws of the United States.” In re Burrus, 136 U. S. 586, 593–594 (1890). “Cases decided by this Court over a period of more than a century bear witness to this historical fact.” Sosna, 419 U. S., at 404. See, e.g., United States v. Windsor, 570 U. S. 744, 766 (2013); McCarty v. McCarty, 453 U. S. 210, 220 (1981); Simms v. Simms, 175 U. S. 162, 167 (1899); Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714, 722, 734–735 (1878).

This does not mean that federal law may never touch on family matters. As the majority observes,, we have held that federal legislation that regulates certain “economic aspects of domestic relations” can preempt conflicting state law. Ridgway v. Ridgway, 454 U. S. 46, 55–56 (1981) (providing an order of precedence for beneficiaries of a service member’s life insurance policy); see, e.g., Hillman v. Maretta, 569 U. S. 483, 485–486 (2013) (allocating federal death benefits); McCarty, 453 U. S., at 211, 235–236 (allocating military retirement pay). But we have never