Up to the year 1906 it had been held by a great majority of courts that a divorce proceedings was in the nature of a proceedings quasi in rem, and that whenever a court had jurisdiction over the person of one of the parties to the marriage contract, it could acquire jurisdiction over the marriage relation and grant a divorce by giving to the other party the best notice practical, which generally consisted of publishing a notice of the suit and sending a copy thereof to the last known residence of the defendant. It was also generally held that a divorce valid where granted would be recognized anywhere. The law on this point was considerably changed by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Haddock vs. Haddock.5 The decision in this case contains the prevailing law on this important subject and is given in full:

4 Kinney [vs. Commonwealth, 30 Gratt., 858; State vs. Kennedy, 76 N. 0., 251.

"The plaintiff in error will be called the husband and the defendant in error the wife.

"The wife, a resident of the state of New York, sued the husband in that state in 1899, and there obtained personal service upon him. The complaint charged that the parties had been married in New York in 1868, where they both resided and where the wife continued to reside, and it was averred that the husband, immediately following the marriage, abandoned the wife, and thereafter failed to support her, and that he was the owner of property. A decree of separation from bed and board and for alimony was prayed. The answer admitted the marriage, but averred that its celebration was procured by the fraud of the wife, and that immediately after the marriage the parties had separated by mutual consent. It was also alleged that during the long period between the celebration and the bringing of this action the wife had in no manner asserted her rights and was barred by her laches from doing so. Besides, the answer alleged that the husband had, in 1881, obtained in a court of the state of Connecticut a divorce which was conclusive. At the trial before a referee the judgment roll in the suit for divorce in Connecticut was offered by the husband and was objected to, first, because the Connecticut court had not obtained jurisdiction over the person of the defendant wife, as the notice of the pendency of the petition was by publication and she had not appeared in the action; and, second, because the ground upon which the divorce was granted, viz., desertion by the wife, was false. The referee sustained the objections and an exception was noted. The judgment roll in question was then marked for identification and forms a part of the record before us.

5 201 U. S., 562, decided April 12, 1906.

"Having thus excluded the proceedings in the Connecticut court, the referee found that the parties were married in New York in 1868, that the wife was a resident of the state of New York, and after the marriage the parties never lived together, and shortly thereafter that the husband without justifiable cause abandoned the wife, and has since neglected to provide for her. The legal conclusion was that the wife was entitled to a separation from bed and board, and alimony in the sum of $780 a year from the date of the judgment. The action of the referee was sustained by the Supreme Court of the state of New York, and a judgment for separation and alimony was entered in favor of the wife. This judgment was affirmed by the Court of Appeals. As by the law of the state of New York, after the affirmance by the Court of Appeals, the record was remitted to the Supreme Court, this writ of error to that court was prosecuted.

"The federal question is, Did the court below violate the Constitution of the United States by refusing to give to the decree of divorce rendered in the state of Connecticut the faith and credit to which it was entitled?

"As the averments concerning the alleged fraud in contracting the marriage and the subsequent laches of the wife are solely matters of state cognizance, we may not allow them to even indirectly influence our judgment upon the federal question to which we are confined, and we, therefore, put these subjects entirely out of view. Moreover, as, for the purpose of the federal issue, we are concerned not with the mere form of proceeding by which the federal right, if any, was denied, but alone have power to decide whether such right was denied, we do not inquire whether the New York court should preferably have admitted the record of the Connecticut divorce suit, and, after so admitting it, determine what effect it would give to it, instead of excluding the record and thus refusing to give effect to the judgment. In order to decide whether the refusal of the court to admit in evidence the Connecticut decree denied to that decree the efficacy to which it was entitled under the full faith and credit clause, we must first examine the judgment roll of the Connecticut cause in order to fix the precise circumstances under which the decree in that cause was rendered.

"Without going into detail, it suffices to say that on the face of the Connecticut record it appeared that the husband, alleging that he had acquired a domicile in Connecticut, sued the wife in that state as a person whose residence was unknown, but whose last known place of residence was in the state of New York, at a place stated, and charged desertion by the wife and fraud on her part in procuring the marriage; and, further, it is shown that no service was made upon the wife except by publication and by mailing a copy of the petition to her at her last known place of residence in the state of New York.

"With the object of confining our attention to the real question arising from this condition of the Connecticut record, we state at the outset certain legal propositions irrevocably concluded by previous decisions of this court, and which are required to be borne in mind in analyzing the ultimate issue to be decided.