e Supreme Court upheld
a minimum wage law for women in 1937, saying that their unequal
bargaining position justified a law applicable only to them.[1139]

Women may be forbidden to engage in an occupation where their employment
may create special moral and social problems. A State statute forbidding
women to act as bartenders, but making an exception in favor of wives
and daughters of the male owners of liquor establishments was sustained
over the objection, which three Justices found persuasive, that the act
denied the equal protection of the law to female owners of such
establishments.[1140] Said Justice Frankfurter for the majority: "The
fact that women may now have achieved the virtues that men have long
claimed as their prerogatives and now indulge in vices that men have
long practiced, does not preclude the States from drawing a sharp line
between the sexes, certainly in such matters as the regulation of the
liquor traffic. * * * The Constitution does not require legislatures to
reflect sociological insight, or shifting social standards, any more
than it requires them to keep abreast of the latest scientific
standards."[1141]

Monopolies

On the principle that the law may hit the evil where it is most felt,
State Antitrust Laws applicable to corporations but not to
individuals,[1142] or to vendors of commodities but not to vendors of
labor,[1143] have been upheld. Contrary to its earlier view, the Court
now holds that an Antitrust Act which exempts agricultural products in
the hands of the producer is valid.[1144] Diversity with respect to
penalties also has been sustained. Corporations violating the law may be
proceeded against by bill in equity, while individuals are indicted and
tried.[1145] A provision, superimposed upon the general Antitrust Law,
for revocation of the licenses of fire insurance companies which enter
into illegal combinations, does not violate the equal protection
clause.[1146] A grant of monopoly privileges, if otherwise an
appropriate exercise of the police power, is immune to attack under that
clause.[1147]

Punishment for Crime

Equality of protection under the law implies that in the administration
of criminal justice no person shall be subject to any greater or
different punishment than another in similar circumstances.[1148]
Comparative gravity of criminal offenses is a matter for the State to
determine, and the fact that some offenses are punished with less
severity than oth