Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/850

814 8i4 HARVARD LAW REVIEW if it is not the law of that domicile after all, which is the real creator of the marital relation? There are numerous cases in this country where, in various situations, the court at a person's domicile has refused to recognize a marriage contracted outside his own state, in evasion of its laws, where the legislature has expressly, or in the opinion of the court, impUedly, announced the state's policy against such union.^^ Such results are from one standpoint unfortunate, for they render un- certain the marriage relation. But the adoption of the policy of refusing to recognize the marriage is a matter for each state to determine for its own citizens,^^ and uniformity of ideas on this subject seems a long way off. To recapitulate: since annulment of a marriage differs so funda- mentally from divorce, in that while the latter severs the matri- monial bonds, the former declares they never existed, jurisdiction to render the nullity decree is not to be found where the parties at the time it is sought may be domiciled. Only the law by which the marriage came into being has power to annul it. If the place of contract, domicile at the time of the marriage and domicile at the time of annulment, are the same, no difficulty is presented. If the place of contract is another state, its law can say that the parties involved did not validly contract, and there is then nothing on which a marital status can be predicated. Despite a valid ceremony by lex loci contractus, the then domiciliary law may say that no marriage status is created. But if the marriage can successfully run this gauntlet, it stands until dissolved by death or divorce. If there is jurisdiction over the subject matter as worked out in the above discussion, it would seem that the proceedings would be desires through the bonds of matrimony, go to Eastern Frisia or to some other place where the consent of their guardian is not necessary to marriage. . . . They celebrate their marriage there and presently return home. I consider this a manifest evasion of our law. Our magistrates are not boimd therefore by the law of nations to recognize and give effect to marriages of this kind." 13 III. L. Rev. 375, 410, 411. '^ Pennegar v. State, 87 Tenn. 244, 10 S. W. 305 (1889). See cases cited in 26 Harv. L. Rev. 536. '^ Wharton on the Conflict of Laws, 3 ed., § 165 6. "Each State or nation has ultimately to determine for itself what statutory inhibitions are by it intended to be imperative as indicative of the decided policy of the State concerning the morals and good order of society to that degree which will render it proper to disregard the jus gentium of 'valid where solemnized valid everywhere.'" Pennegar v. State, 87 Tenn. 244, 249, 10 S. W. 305 (1889).