Horace Gray, Atherton v. Atherton — Opinion of the Court
“ The purpose and effect of a decree of divorce from the bond of matrimony by a court of competent jurisdiction are to change the existing status or domestic relation of husband and wife, and to free them both from the bond. The marriage tie, when thus severed as to one party, ceases to bind either. A husband without a wife, or a wife without a husband, is unknown to the law. ”
Horace Gray, Atherton v. Atherton — Opinion of the Court
“ That a husband can drive his wife from his home by conduct which entitles her to a divorce, and thus force her to find another domicil, and then commence proceedings in a court of his own domicil for a divorce, which court obtains jurisdiction over her only by a service of process in the state of her new domicil, through the mail, and that on such service he can obtain a judgment of divorce which shall be conclusive against her in her action in the court of her own domicil, seems to me to be at war with sound principle and the adjudged cases. ”
Horace Gray, Atherton v. Atherton — Opinion of the Court
“ The husband was never an inhabitant of Rhode Island. The wife afterwards married another man. The supreme judicial court of Maine, in an opinion delivered by Mr. Justice Weston, held that the divorce in Rhode Island dissolved the bond of marriage between the parties; and said: 'If we refuse to give full faith and credit to the decree of the supreme judicial court of Rhode Island, because the party libeled 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. ”
