IV. Problems of Marriage and the Family 355-396
V. Session Laws and Collected Statutes Used in Chapters XVI-XVIII 396-402
MATRIMONIAL INSTITUTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES
A CENTURY AND A QUARTER OF DIVORCE LEGISLATION IN THE UNITED STATES, 1776-1903
[BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE XVII.--The session laws and compilations used in the preparation of this chapter are the same as those mentioned in Bibliographical Note XVI; and they are listed in the Bibliographical Index, V. The entire body of divorce laws enacted in each of the states and territories since 1775 has been examined. Among the decisions cited the most important are West Cambridge _v._ Lexington (October, 1823), 1 Pickering, _Mass. Reports_, 507-12; Putnam _v._ Putnam (September, 1829), 8 Pickering, _Mass. Reports_, 433-35; Desaussure's comments on the case of Vaigneur _v._ Kirk (1808), 2 _South Carolina Equity Reports_, 644-46; Justice Pope's opinion in McCrery _v._ Davis (1894), 44 _South Carolina Reports_, 195-227; Justice Nisbet's opinion in Head _v._ Head, 2 _Georgia Reports_ (1847), 191-211; Van Voorhis _v._ Brintnall, 86 _New York Reports_ (1881), 18; Willey _v._ Willey, 22 _Washington Reports_ (1900), 115-21; and Estate of Wood, 137 _California Reports_ (1902), 129 ff.
For summaries of the divorce laws of the states at different periods see Lloyd, _Treatise on the Law of Divorce_ (Boston and New York, 1887); Hirsh, _Tabulated Digest of the Divorce Laws of the U. S._ (New York, 1888; new ed., 1901); Stimson, _American Statute Law_ (Boston, 1886), I, 682-715; Fairbanks, _The Divorce Laws of Mass._ (Boston, 1887); Neubauer, "Ehescheidung im Auslande," in _ZVR._, VIII, 278-316; IX, 160-74 (Stuttgart, 1889-91); Woolsey, _Divorce and Divorce Legislation_ (2d ed., New York, 1882); and compare the works of Vanness, Noble, Convers, Snyder, Ernst, and Whitney mentioned in Bibliographical Note XVI. Whitmore has a helpful article on "Statutory Restraints on the Marriage of Divorced Persons," in _Central Law Journal_, LVII, 444-49 (St. Louis, 1903). Consult the literature described in Bibliographical Note XVIII.]
During the colonial era the broad outlines and essential principles of the American divorce law, as it still exists in the various states, had already taken form. Long before the Revolution it was predetermined that a free and tolerant policy in this regard must prevail in the United States. The task of the legislator during the century following the birth of the nation has, in general, consisted in effecting a further liberalization in the causes of divorce; while at the same time the details of the system have been gradually wrought out. At the close of the period one finds much more elaborate and careful provisions regarding causes, residence, notice, alimony and property than at the beginning. An attempt will be made in this chapter to sketch the course of legislation in all of the states during a hundred and twenty-five years. Necessarily only the more salient features can be brought out. The beginning and the end, with some of the more important intervening changes, may be dwelt upon. The immense volume of laws, the constant stream of legislative enactments, the ceaseless tinkering of the statute-maker, the wearisome repetitions, render anything more than this very difficult and perhaps unnecessary. The most that one can hope for is to make the right impression; to disclose the true perspective by a judicious selection and grouping of the materials.