The Supreme Court decision in Adkins
v. Children's Hospital, 1923.
But
the ancient inequality of the sexes, otherwise than physical, as suggested in
the Muller Case has continued "with diminishing intensity." In view
of the great - not to say revolutionary - changes which have taken place since
that utterance, in the contractual, political, and civil status of women,
culminating in the Nineteenth Amendment, it is not unreasonable to say that
this inequality has now come almost, if not quite, to the vanishing point. In
this aspect of the matter, while the physical differences must be recognized in
appropriate cases, and legislation fixing hours or conditions of work may
properly take them into account, we cannot accept the doctrine that women of
mature age, sui Juris, require or may be subjected to
restrictions upon their liberty of contract which could not lawfully be imposed
in the case of men under similar circumstances. To do so would be to ignore all
the implications to be drawn from the present day trend of legislation, as well
as that of common thought and usage, by which woman is accorded emancipation
from the old doctrine that she must be given special protection or be subjected
to special restraint in her contractual and civil relationships.