"True it is the court reserved the question as to what effect might be given to a divorce if granted by a New York court under circumstances such as existed in that case. But, as a suit for a declaration of nullity and one for divorce are both but modes for determining judicially the status of the parties, it must in reason follow if jurisdiction over both is a prerequisite in the one class, it is of necessity also essential in the other.

"Maine - In Harding vs. Alden (1832), 9 Me., 140, the facts were these: While living together in Maine a husband deserted his wife. He went to North Carolina, where he pretented to marry, and lived there with another woman. In the meantime the wife whom he had deserted took up her residence in Rhode Island, where she sued for a divorce on the ground of the adultery committed by the husband in North Carolina. The husband, who was notified in North Carolina, did not appear in the Rhode Island divorce cause. A decree of divorce was granted and the wife then remarried. The first husband, during the coverture, owned and alienated real estate in Maine, and a statute of that state provided that where a divorce was decreed for adultery by the husband, dower might be assigned to the divorced wife in the same manner as if the husband were dead. The divorced wife brought an action of dower in a court in Maine. The Rhode Island decree was held to possess validity in Maine and the statute relating to dower was decided not to be limited to divorces decreed within the state of Maine. Considering the opinion in its entirety, it is plain that the Rhode Island divorce was given recognition from considerations of right and justice and upon the ground of state comity. Thus, the court called attention to the fact that adultery was a cause for divorce in both states and that divorces were granted in Maine against non-residents; and, it was observed, that 'there would be great inconvenience in holding' that divorces ought not to be recognized in other states when granted in the state where the injured party resided against one who had established his domicile in another state and there committed adultery.

"True it is in the course of the opinion reasoning was employed tending to show that the Rhode Island court might be considered to have had jurisdiction in the complete sense and it was intimated that the full faith and credit clause might have application, but the operation of the Rhode Island decree in Maine was by the decree of the Maine court expressly limited to the dissolution of the marriage (p. 151). How far removed this was from giving to the Rhode Island decree the benefit of the full faith and credit clause will, we think, be made clear by what follows.

"Harding vs. Alden was decided at the July term, 1832. Less than two years afterward, on March 5, 1834, Public Laws 1834, Ch. 116, p. 119, the statute of Maine regulating divorces was supplemented by various provisions, one such being the following: 'sec. 2. Be it further enacted, That in all cases where one party has been or shall be divorced from the bonds of matrimony, the court granting the same may, upon application therefor, grant to the other party a like divorce, on such terms and conditions as the said court in the exercise of a sound discretion may judge reasonable.' This provision was carried into the Revised Statutes of 1840, Ch. 89, Sec. 2, and although repealed in 1850, in a general revision of the divorce laws, it was held that the legislature did not intend to deprive the courts of Maine of the power to entertain a suit for divorce brought by a person from whom the other party to a marriage had already been divorced, and that the courts of Maine still possessed power to exercise jurisdiction over such suits. Stilphen vs. Stilphen, 58 Me., 508. In the cited case, although a husband had already obtained an absolute divorce, a like divorce was granted to the wife, and the court allowed to her certain articles of personal property and the sum of $500. In overruling exceptions to the decree the appellate court adopted the theory that the second decree in no wise impugned the first, and was important only as enabling 'the court to make such ancillary decrees concerning the property as justice and humanity may require' (p. 517). In the course of the opinion the court said (p. 516):

"'There is no class of cases in which the court is so liable to be imposed upon, and a decision obtained contrary to the truth, as ex parte divorce suits. The notice is often imperfect, so that the confession of guilt implied in the default is deceptive. And it is well known that witnesses, testifying in the presence of one of the parties and in the absence of the other, will so alter and magnify the faults of the absent, and suppress everything that makes against the party present, that it is impossible to tell where the truth and real merits of the controversy are. When both parties are present, each is sure to put the other in the wrong; and a fortiori is this true, when one of the parties is permitted to testify in the absence of the other, as is now the case in divorce suits. We repeat, therefore, that there is no class of cases in which the court is so liable to be imposed upon; and it seems to us of the utmost importance that the court should be possessed of the power in some form to revise their decisions in this class of cases; otherwise, the grossest injustice is liable to be done.'

"In the light of this decision it cannot be assumed that the courts of Maine would give a citizen of that state against whom a divorce had been obtained in a foreign jurisdiction, upon constructive service, a less degree of relief than they afford as to a decree rendered in Maine, both parties being present and bound by the decree.

"Rhode Island, - Ditson vs. Ditson, (1856) 4 R. I., 87, was a suit for divorce on the grounds of desertion, extreme cruelty, and nonsupport, brought by a wife domiciled in Rhode Island against the husband, who had never resided in Rhode Island, and whose whereabouts was unknown. The question was whether the Rhode Island court ought to exercise jurisdiction. The opinion was mainly devoted to refuting the reasoning employed by Chief Justice Shaw in his opinion in the case of Lyon vs. Lyon, 2 Gray (Mass.), 367, in which case, as we have previously shown, the Massachusetts court refused to give effect to a Rhode Island decree of divorce where both parties were not within the jurisdiction. The Rhode Island court (in the Ditson case), in effect declared that it would not exercise jurisdiction to grant a divorce if it considered that a decree rendered by it would not be entitled to extraterritorial effect because of a lack of actual jurisdiction over the defendant. The court, however, proceeded to reason that a suit for divorce was in effect a proceeding in rem, and that jurisdiction over one of the parties to a suit for the dissolution of the marriage tie drew to the court jurisdiction of the other party, and thereby gave full and complete jurisdiction over the status of both parties, and upon that hypothesis decided that it would exercise jurisdiction, and that its decree dissolving the marriage would be entitled to the benefit of the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution and have binding efficacy in every other state.