Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/842

806 8o6 HARVARD LAW REVIEW JURISDICTION TO ANNUL A MARRIAGE THE law has gone a long way from the theory that a valid matrimonial union is indissoluble. Whatever the church may say about remarriage of a party once married and divorced, the civil authority has no difficulty in saying that marriage bonds may be completely severed. It is now clear that power to dissolve a marriage relation by divorce belongs to the law where the parties are domiciled, and is based on the jurisdiction of a state to deal with the status of its citizens.-^ Is the situation different when the relation of the parties is ended by a decree that the marriage was null and void, as distinguished from a divorce decree which dissolves it? In other words, does jurisdiction to annul a marriage differ from that of divorce? It is, of course, granted that any state if it pleases may treat two people as unmarried while within its borders. It may give a man a divorce whether he is domiciled there or not. Such procedure has been a national scandal. But his decree will not keep him out of trouble if he marries again in another state. In the same way a court could grant an annulment of marriage to any party before it, which, if in accordance with the local law, would entitle the party to the privileges and immunities of a single person within its borders. But this is not jurisdiction in what may be termed the international sense, in the sense in which the word is used in Conflict of Laws, a jurisdiction which will entitle the decree to recognition elsewhere. Does jurisdiction in this sense depend on domicile as does that for divorce? Eminent authority has so declared. Says Bishop:^ "A suit to declare a marriage void from the beginning concerns the marriage status precisely like one to break the marriage bond for a post- nuptial delictum. Therefore it may be and should be carried on in the- coiurts of the domicile." That a suit for annulment concerns the marriage status there is no doubt, that it concerns this relation precisely like one to break off the tie for a postnuptial delictum is not so clear. The effect of 1 Minor, Conflict of Laws, § 88. » 2 Bishop on Marriage, Divorce and Separation, § 73.