Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/431

 42-i FEDERAL REPORTER. �place of performance of an agreement to marry is the place where the marriage is to be solemnized, or whether it is not that place where the parties are to reside, and discharge their marital relations. The instructions on the trial assumed that the place of solemnization was the place of performance. �The word "marriage" is used in two different senses : the one denoting the act of entering into the marriage relation ; the other the relation itself. In the latter sense it is defined as the civil status of one man and one woman, united in law for life, under the obligation to discharge to each other and to the eommunity those duties which the community, by its laws, imposes. 1 Bishop on Marriage and Divorce, § 3. �The general rule is, undoubtedly, that a marriage, good by the law of the place of solemnization, is good everywhere. �It is unnecessary to refer to the exceptions, such as polyga- mous or incestuous marriages. The rule rests upon consid- erations of policy. "Infinite mischief must necessarily arise to the subjects of ail nations with respect to legitimacy, suc- cessions, and other rights, if the respective laws of different countries were only to be observed as to marriages contracted by the subjects of those countries abroad, and therefore ail nations have consented, or are presumed to consent, for the common benefit and advantage, that such marriages shall be good or not, according to the laws of the country where they are celebrated. By observing this rule few, if any, inconve- niences can arise. By disregarding it infinite mischiefs may ensue." Scrimshire v. Scrimshire, 2 Hagg. Cens. 417, 418. �The question here is not whether the place of solemnization of a marriage controls the status of the parties, but whether the place of solemnization is the place of performance of an agreement to marry. The promise is to enter into a relation to which the state, where the parties are to be domiciled, can attach its own conditions, both as to the creation and dura- tion of the relation. If the parties here contemplated making Alabama their domicile, their promise to marry could not be eubstantially fulfilled without abandoning their intention; because, in Alabama, they would bave been not only social outlaws but criminals. ����