According to the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), there are over a thousand federal laws that treat married people differently from single people. It should be noted that these rights and responsibilities apply only to male-female married couples, as the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) defines marriage as between a man and a woman and thus bars Same-sex couples from receiving any federal recognition of same sex marriage or conveyance of marriage benefits to same sex couples through federal marriage law. See below for a partial list of these provisions of federal law.