Opinion of the Court. "If we refuse to give full faith and credit to the decree of the Supreme Judicial Court of Rhode Island, because the party libelled had his domicil in another State, and was not within their jurisdiction, we refuse to accord to the decrees of that court the efficacy we claim for our own, when liable to the same objection. In the case before us, it is agreed that the party injured was at the time an inhabitant of Rhode Island, residing in Providence, and this fact is recited in the decree. It appears that by order of the court a citation was served upon the defendant in person; and that a continuance was twice granted, to give him an opportunity to appear in defence. This shows a due regard to that principle of justice, which gives to the party accused the right to be heard. The decree was rendered by the highest judicial tribunal in that State. As it belongs to that tribunal to declare, authoritatively and definitively, what the law of the State is, we are bound to infer that by that law the bonds of matrimony, previously existing between the libellant and her former husband, were thereby dissolved; and that such is the effect of the decree within the State of Rhode Island." 9 Greenl. 148. "There would be great inconvenience in holding that a divorce decreed in the State where the injured party resided might not be held valid through the Union, where the right of citizenship is common, where the party accused had established his domicil in another State, and there committed adultery. And this is the only objection to the efficacy of the decree in question; it being insisted that the court had no jurisdiction over the absent party. As has been before intimated, it would apply with equal force to many divorces decreed in this State. It would require that the wife, abandoned and dishonored, should seek the new domicil of the guilty husband, animo manendi, before she could claim the benefit of the law to be relieved from his control. In giving effect here to the divorce decreed in Rhode Island, we would wish to be understood, that the ground upon which we place our decision is limited to the dissolution of the marriage. In the libel, alimony was prayed for; and certain personal property, then in the possession of the wife, was decreed to her. Had the court awarded her a gross sum, or a weekly Opinion of the Court. or an annual allowance, to be paid by the husband, and the courts of this or any other State had been resorted to to enforce it, a different question would be presented." 9 Greenl. 151. Chancellor Kent, in his Commentaries, says of that case that it was there held "that a decree of divorce did not fall within the rule that a judgment rendered against one not within the State, nor bound by its laws, nor amendable to its jurisdiction, was not entitled to credit against the defendant in another State; and that divorces pronounced according to the law of one jurisdiction, and the new relations thereupon formed, ought to be recognized, in the absence of all fraud, as operative and binding everywhere, so far as related to the dissolution of the marriage, though not as to other parts of the decree, such as an order for the payment of money by the husband." And the Chancellor adds, "This is an important and valuable decision." 2 Kent Com. 110, note. In Ditson v. Ditson, (1856) 4 Rhode Island, 87, (of which Judge Cooley, in his Treatise on Constitutional Limitations, 403, note, says there is no case in the books more full and satisfactory upon the whole subject of jurisdiction in divorce suits,) the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, in an elaborate opinion by Chief Justice Ames, affirmed its jurisdiction, upon constructive notice by publication, to grant a divorce to a wife domiciled in Rhode Island against a husband who had never been in Rhode Island, and whose place of residence was unknown; and said: "It is obvious that marriage, as a domestic relation, emerged from the contract which created it, is known and recognized as such throughout the civilized world; that it gives rights and imposes duties and restrictions upon the parties to it, affecting their social and moral condition, of the measure of which every civilized State, and certainly every State of this Union, is the sole judge so far as its own, citizens or subjects are concerned, and should be so deemed by other civilized, and especially sister States; that a State cannot be deprived, directly or indirectly, of its sovereign power to regulate the status of its own domiciled subjects and citizens, by the fact that the subjects and citizens of other States, as related to them, are interested in that status; and in such a matter has a right, under the general law, Opinion of the Court. judicially to deal with and modify or dissolve this relation, binding both parties to it by the decree, by virtue of its inherent power over its own citizens and subjects, and to enable it to answer their obligatory demands for justice; and finally, that in the exercise of this judicial power, and in order to the validity of a decree of divorce, whether a mensa et thoro or a vinculo matrimonii, the general law does not deprive a State of its proper jurisdiction over the condition of its own citizens, because non-residents, foreigners or domiciled inhabitants of other States have not or will not become, and cannot be made to become, personally subject to the jurisdiction of its courts; but upon the most familiar principles, and as illustrated by the most familiar analogies of general law, its courts may and can act conclusively in such a matter upon the rights and interests of such persons, giving to them such notice, actual or constructive, as the nature of the case admits of, and the practice of courts in similar cases sanctions." 4 Rhode Island, 105, 106. The statutes of Massachusetts provided as follows: "When an inhabitant of this State goes into another State or country to obtain a divorce for any cause occurring here, and whilst the parties resided here, or for any cause which would not authorize a divorce by the laws of this State, a divorce so obtained shall be of no force or effect in this State. In all other cases, a divorce decreed in any other State or country according to the laws thereof, by a court having jurisdiction of the cause and both the parties, shall be valid and effectual in this State." That provision made no change in the law, but, in the words of the Commissioners upon whose advice it was first enacted, "is founded on the rule established by the comity of all civilized nations; and is proposed merely that no doubt should arise on a question so interesting and important as this may sometimes be." Gen. Stat. of 1860, c. 107, §§ 54, 55; Rev. Stat. of 1836, c. 76, §§ 39, 40, and note of Commissioners; Ross v. Ross, 129 Mass. 243, 248. In Hood v. Hood, (1865) 11 Allen, 196, the husband and wife, after living together in Massachusetts, removed to Illinois, and there lived together; the wife, "under circumstances as to which there was no evidence," and afterwards the husband, Opinion of the Court. came back to Massachusetts, and, while they were living there in his brother-in-law's house for a few weeks, he signed an agreement, reciting that they had separated, and promising to pay her a certain weekly sum so long as she should remain single. She continued to reside in Massachusetts; and he obtained in Illinois a decree of divorce from her for her desertion, upon such notice as the laws of Illinois authorized in the case of an absent defendant. It was held by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, in an opinion delivered by Mr. Justice Hoar, that both parties had their domicil in Illinois, and were subject to the jurisdiction of its courts; and that the fact of desertion by the wife was conclusively settled between the parties by the decree in Illinois, and it was not competent for the wife to contradict it on a libel afterwards filed by her in Massachusetts; and her libel was dismissed. And in Hood v. Hood, (1872) 110 Mass. 463, it appearing that such dismissal was upon the ground of the validity of the previous decree of divorce in Illinois, it was adjudged that that decree could not be impeached by the wife in a writ of dower by her against third persons, the court saying: "The decree in favor of her husband, dismissing her libel, was then forever conclusive against her, as between themselves. It severed the relation between them; or rather estopped her from averring anything to the contrary of the decree in Illinois which purported to sever that relation. The general rule, however, in regard to estoppels of record, is that they are good only between the parties of record and their privies. They cannot be set up in collateral proceedings between one of those parties and third persons. But the effect of the judgment in this case was to determine the status of the demandant. So far as it did that, it is a judgment that is operative and conclusive as to all the world." The like view has been affirmed by courts of other States. Thompson v. State, (1856) 28 Alabama, 13; Leith v. Leith, (1859) 39 N. H. 20, 39-43; Shafer v. Bushnell, (1869) 24 Wisconsin, 372; Gould v. Crow, (1874) 57 Missouri, 200; Van Orsdal v. Van Orsdal, (1885) 67 Iowa, 35; Smith v. Smith, (1891) 43 La. Ann. 1140; In re James, (1893) 99 California, 374; Dun ham v. Dunham, (1896) 162 Illinois, 589, 607–610. Opinion of the Court. In Shaw v. Shaw, (1867) 98 Mass. 158, the husband and wife, domiciled in Massachusetts, left the State to take up their residence in Colorado. In Pennsylvania, on the journey, he treated her with extreme cruelty, and she left him and returned to Massachusetts, and continued to reside there. It was held that while they were in Pennsylvania the domicil of both parties remained in Massachusetts, and that the wife might maintain a libel in Massachusetts for the cause occurring in Pennsylvania, although the husband before it occurred had left Massachusetts with the intention of never returning, and never did in fact return, and therefore no notice was or could be served upon him in Massachusetts. In a very recent case, the Court of Errors of New Jersey maintained the validity of a divorce obtained in the State of Utah by a husband, having his bona fide domicil there, against a wife whose domicil was in New Jersey, after publication of the process and complaint in accordance with the statutes of Utah, and personal service upon the wife in New Jersey in time to enable her to make defence, if she wished to do so. Mr. Justice Gummere, speaking for the Court of Errors, said that, at least, "interstate comity requires that a decree of divorce, pronounced by a court of the State in which the complainant is domiciled, and which has jurisdiction of the subject-matter of the suit, shall, in the absence of fraud, be given full force and effect within the jurisdiction of a sister State, notwithstanding that the defendant does not reside within the jurisdiction of the court which pronounced the decree, and has not been served with process therein; provided that a substituted service has been made in accordance with the provisions of the statute of that State, and that actual notice of the pendency of the suit has been given to the defendant, and a reasonable opportunity afforded to put in a defence thereto; and provided, further, that the ground upon which the decree rests is one which the public policy of the State in which it is sought to be enforced recognizes as a sufficient cause for divorce." Felt v. Felt, (1899) 14 Dickinson (59 N. J. Eq.). In New York, North Carolina and South Carolina, the opposite view has prevailed, either upon the ground that the rule |