Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/859

823 JURISDICTION TO ANNUL A MARRIAGE 823 legislatures had always treated the two together, the Washington court has held that a statute providing for service by publication in divorce actions applies to nullity suits.^'' Statutes of some states make requirements of annulment and divorce suits the same for both jurisdiction and procedure.^^ In 1907 an act Regulating Divorce and Annulment of Marriage was approved by the Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and recommended for adoption. The first section of the act states the grounds for annulment. Section six provided for the court which is to hear the suits. Section seven says: "For purposes of annulment of marriage, jurisdiction may be acquired by personal service upon the defendant within this state when either party is a bond fide resident of this state at the time of the commencement of the action." Section nine provides that where the plaintiff is a bond fide resident of the state and the defendant cannot be served within the juris- diction, there may be service by publication, followed where practicable by personal notice to the defendant. The draftsmen of this act were not troubled about the right of any other state than the one which created the marriage to annul it. But the diffi- culty is still present, is it not? If South Dakota annulled, because its table of degrees of consanguinity forbade a marriage contracted in California, where valid, would California or any other state ^^ recognize the effect of this decree? If all the states would adopt the act, the matter would be conclusively settled, for section twenty-two provides that full faith and credit shall be given to a decree of annulment or divorce of another state when given in conformity with the jurisdictional requirements of the uniform statute. Recognition of another's annulment decree, no matter where the marriage was created would be compelled by the mu- nicipal law of each state. But even with the great effort which has been made, there are still states which have not even yet adopted the Negotiable Instruments Law, the best known and most IS, 115 N. W. 489 (1908), " IcfWA Code, § 3183, and Code Stipp. § 3187 a; Nebraska Comp. Stats. 1903, § 3167; VrRGiMTA Code, 1904, § 2259. ^ The act leaves to each state to establish its own table of degrees for consanguinity or affinity.
 * " Piperp. Piper, 46 Wash. 671, 91 Pac. 189 (1907); contra-, Bisby zi. Mould, 138 Iowa,