In the case of Weinberger, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare v. Salfi et al., 1974, the U.S Supreme Court ruled on a challenge to a provision in the Social Security Act that denied survivor's benefits to widows and stepchildren who had not been related to their late husband or father for at least nine months before his death. The plaintiffs argued that this rule violated their Fifth Amendment rights by discriminating against them based on marital status and duration. However, the court upheld the law with a 7-2 decision stating it was not unconstitutional as Congress has broad power when creating social welfare programs under its spending powers. The majority opinion held that such classifications were permissible if they have some "reasonable basis". In this case, preventing fraudulent marriages solely for obtaining benefits provided such reasonable basis.

In the dissenting opinion for Weinberger v. Salfi, Justice William O. Douglas argued that the Social Security Act's "duration-of-relationship" requirement was unconstitutional as it violated due process and equal protection principles under the Fifth Amendment. He believed that this provision unfairly discriminated against certain classes of widows and stepchildren who were denied benefits solely because their marriages to wage earners had not lasted nine months before death occurred, regardless of whether they were dependent on those earnings or not. Furthermore, he criticized the majority's decision for allowing Congress to make arbitrary classifications based on assumptions rather than facts in determining eligibility for social security benefits. In his view, such a broad deference to legislative judgment could potentially justify any discriminatory law under rational basis review.