is not common to acknowledge so frankly. The truth is, that such an argument would lead to the perpetuity of all errors in jurisprudence, however accidentally adopted in the first instance.

31. But there is one case, Ditson vs. Ditson, 4 Rhode Is. R. 89, where this rule of the validity of ex parte divorces in foreign states is attempted to be vindicated upon general principles. It is here declared that jurisdiction of the cause is acquired by the domicil of one of the parties, and that the petitioner being within. the state is sufficient to give jurisdiction of the cause, notwithstanding the cause of action accrued without the state, and that this is so upon general principles, upon the ground that it pertains to all sovereign states to declare conclusively the status of their own citizens. The argument of the learned judge in this case is drawn up with great coolness and deliberation, and comes with great weight, both from its intrinsic force and the high reputation of its author as a learned jurist and a most exemplary and faithful magistrate; and we always regret exceedingly the necessity to dissent from the opinion of such a judge. But there seems here no alternative. The learned judge concedes fully that the opinion of Chief Justice SHAW, in Lyon vs. Lyon, 2 Gray 367, is against the view for which he contends, and that it is distinctly put by this able and experienced magistrate, upon the broad ground that such decrees of divorce are in all cases "VOID, UPON GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF LAW." This is, indeed, to acknowledge, in the outset, a great weight of authority against the proposition attempted to be maintained. Any legal proposition condemned in such unequivocal terms by such an authority as Chief Justice SHAW, must needs present very good reasons for its adoption, or it will be likely to meet with slight encouragement.

32. The suggestion that Chief Justice SHAW had fallen into an inaccuracy of expression, when he speaks of the subject-matter of divorce as confined to the domicil of the parties at the time the cause accrued, and quoting Mr. Justice STORY, Confi. Laws, § 230, a, in confirmation of that inaccuracy, is certainly a misconception of the real meaning of the authority quoted. There is no conflict between the views of these two eminent jurists, as we construe

them. Mr. Justice STORY does not here intend to affirm that the subject-matter of the cause of action is not confined to the domicil of the parties at the time it accrues. The first authority cited by Mr. Justice STORY, Pawling vs. Bird's Ex'rs., 13 Johns. R. 192, goes clearly to show that this is not what is intended by the learned author. And what is said in regard to it being unimportant, that the cause of divorce accrued where the parties were not domiciled, has reference, unquestionably, to the domicil at the time the cause of action accrued, it being clearly settled that all such acts, wherever they occur, are referred to the domicil of the parties at the time. It is evident the writer did not refer to cases of change of domicil after the cause of action accrued, and the cases cited in the note to that effect were probably added by others, since the decease of the learned author, as bearing upon the general question. For the very section referred to quotes with approbation the opinion of Chief Justice GIBSON, in Dorsey vs. Dorsey, 7 Watts 349, and in the very portion extracted by the learned author it is said: "Transfer of allegiance and domicil is a contingency which enters into the views of the parties, and of which the wife consents to bear the risk. By sanctioning this transfer beforehand, we consent to part with the municipal governance incident to it, but with the limitation, we part not with the remedy of past transgression,"-which excepts the very point for which the section is quoted against the words of Chief Justice SHAW, and which shows very clearly that both Mr. Justice STORY and Chief Justice GIBSON coincide with Chief Justice SHAW upon this point. This is also the view expressed by Chief Justice ROBERTSON, in Maguire vs. Maguire, 7 Dana 181, and by all the American courts, so far as we know, with the exception of the two cases already named in Maine and Rhode Island, and that of Toien vs. Tolen, 2 Blackf. (Ind.) R. 407. And these decisions. have all come from states which have acquired an unenviable notoriety in regard to their lax views upon the laws of divorce. We say this more in sorrow than in anger, but chiefly as a needful caution against the weight of the decisions in these states upon this subject.

33. It is unnecessary to pursue this discussion further. The right of every state to dissolve the marriage relation of all its domiciled inhabitants, for causes accruing while such domicil continues, no one will question. And the constitutional right to dissolve that relation between two parties domiciled there, even for causes accruing while they had their domicil in another state, it is not needful to discuss. Other states would not, and have no just right to, complain of that, even. And as they may confessedly allow their domiciled inhabitants to marry again, without reference to having another wife or husband in another state, it is not worth while to make much controversy about the mode of doing it.

But other states have the right to complain, and they will complain, if they have any proper sense of the important consequences which flow from giving countenance to the unrestricted disregard of the marriage relation, when one state assumes to dissolve the marriage tie between man and wife, when neither the solemnization of the contract, the alleged breach of its duties, or the domicil of the offending party, even, come within the state; and where there is no service of process upon such party within the state. There is no possible apology for such a proceeding, and it cannot obtain respect beyond the limits of the forum where it is done. We have already referred to cases in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Tennessee, condemning such a practice. Similar views are maintained in Hull vs. Hull, 2 Strobh. Eq. 174; Edwards vs. Green, 9 Louisiana. 317; Irby vs. Wilson, 1 Dev. & Batt. Eq. R. 568, 576; and doubtless many others; while the more relaxed rule gains no countenance by the formal decisions of more than three of the states.

The ground maintained in Ditson vs. Ditson, supra, that jurisdiction is acquired over the subject-matter by the domicil of one of the parties, because it is a matter affecting the status of that party, seems to us to have no just application to the subject. The status of the person has no more just application to the relation of husband and wife, than to that of debtor and creditor, parent and child, guardian and ward, and numerous similar correlative

relations. And it will not be claimed that the status of domiciled inhabitants, in these respects, can be so fixed by the decrees of one state as to affect the correlative rights of the other party, who never came within the jurisdiction of that state, and where the transaction in question occurred wholly in other jurisdictions. This has been long settled in regard to discharges in insolvency, and there can be no question the same rule would be extended to the other relations named.

And there would be as little doubt in regard to the relation of marriage, were it not that the forming of a new relation of that kind with a third party is supposed to present embarrassing questions in regard to crime, or legitimacy. But all this results from an attempt to maintain inviolate the doctrine of one marriage only, or monogamy, as it is called.

34. If we were only reconciled to meet the subject fairly, and to call things by their right names, instead of attempting to bend the old doctrines of the common law, and to introduce doctrines never attempted to be maintained in any other country, where polygamy is not sanctioned, there would be no embarrassment. Let us then hereafter meet the question fairly, and avow the clear and obvious consequence of such a doctrine, that such an ex parte decree of divorce has no proper effect upon the relation of husband and wife; that the married relation remains the same as it was before; the petitioner is still married to the absent defendant, who never became a party to the proceeding or the judgment, and who is, of course, in no way affected by it, and consequently the married relation remains the same as before, and all its rights and duties, beyond the limits of the state, are the same. But the decree has nevertheless produced some very important results upon the status of the petitioner. The petitioner is released, within that particular state, from all his duties and obligations connected with the former marriage, and the contract is annulled as to him, within the state, and he or she is at liberty to take another wife or husband, within that forum, and there to exercise the correlative rights and duties growing out of the new relation, and is absolved from all penal or other consequences, on account of the existence of another wife or husband, in another state.

35. This will not, indeed, legalize polygamy precisely in the state where such decrees in regard to the status of its domiciled inhabitants are passed. It only allows a man to have a different wife in different states! And this rule is susceptible of such extension that the same man may have many different wives in different states, but only one wife in the same state. And if there be any soundness in the maxim that exchange is no robbery, we do not exactly perceive how such a person is liable to punishment under the statute against bigamy, since he has not two wives with reference to any one jurisdiction, but only different wives in different jurisdictions.

36. We trust we shall not be accused of any improper degree of levity in regard to the right of one state to determine the status of a married person with reference to transactions occurring while the parties were domiciled in another state, where the domicil of the other party still remains, and without having acquired any proper jurisdiction of such party. The proposition of giving jurisdiction of the transaction in such a manner is too one-sided, and too glaringly absurd, not to say offensive, to be seriously entertained by any mind not some way perverted upon the point in controversy. For while the party, leaving the former domicil of both the parties, is obtaining a divorce upon his own ex parte petition, and upon what the foreign state consents to call a new domicil, and without bringing the other party or the subjectmatter of the contest within the new jurisdiction; at the very moment while this ex parte proceeding is giving a new status to one party, the other party, in the place of the old domicil, upon a petition for alimony, or separate maintenance, or for restitution of conjugal rights, is obtaining a decree confirming the former status. How, then, shall these two status be reconciled, and which shall prevail? This mode of illustration might be carried further, but enough has been said to show that the claim is based upon the broad principle of the right of one state to allow its domiciled inhabitants to marry again, without reference to any impediment of having another husband, or wife, in another state. The claim of the right to fix the status of its inhabitants in this respect means all this, or else it means nothing.