[535] _U. S. Stat. at Large_, XXXI, 408-10, 415.
Until very recently in California no clear restraint was put upon further wedlock after full separation. In 1897, following the example of Colorado, the legislature provided that in case of dissolution a new marriage may validly be contracted by either person only when the decree of divorce has been rendered at least one year before.[536] This amendment, it seems, was designed primarily to remedy an abuse arising in the uncertainties of California law--one often encouraged by careless legislation in the United States. Its purpose, says Judge Belcher in the opinion below cited, "was to correct a great public evil which had become too rife--to put a stop to marriages within the period allowed for the appeal from the decree of divorce, which might be and sometimes had been reversed, with great scandal to the parties who had married again." In the meantime this new and stringent provision has given occasion for still more serious evils originating in the inharmonious laws of adjacent states. The statutes of Nevada, whose borders are within easy reach of San Francisco, have not fixed a period within which divorced persons may not contract further wedlock. As a result, Reno has become the Gretna Green of California couples who there seek to evade the interdict of their own law. Whether a person who retains his domicile in California may contract a valid marriage in Nevada within less than one year after having been divorced in the former state is a question regarding which the decisions of the superior courts long contradicted one another.[537] But the supreme tribunal has just determined[538] that California in this regard is to take her place by the side of New York and Massachusetts, whose example Washington had already followed.[539] To overcome the effect of this decision, the legislature has enacted that if in any case the court "determines that a divorce ought to be granted an interlocutory judgment must be entered, declaring that the party in whose favor the court decides is entitled to a divorce." After one year has expired, on its own motion or the motion of either person, the court "may enter final judgment granting the divorce," unless action on appeal or on a motion for a new trial is pending. "In no case can a marriage of either of the parties during the life of the other be valid in this state, if contracted within one year after the entry of an interlocutory decree." But this legislation,[540] it is believed, will be declared unconstitutional by the supreme court.[541]