Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-06-19
UNIFORMITY OF MARRIAGE LAWS

UG1FUhhlII Of MAhhI2GE LAWS
There is in London an association
For the Relief pf Americans in Distress
Abroad" Pr Charles Stewar tWelles. Of
New York, was at its head. 1t did, in its
day, great deal of good, and is still
active, but has lessened field of op-
erations since the establishment of quicker
and closer means Of communication be-
tween America and Europe DIR. Welles
says that while he was in the organization
It developed that very largely the cases of
distress among our people abroad grew out
Of the want Of uniformity in our marriage
laws. The diversity of these laws aided
rascals in imposing upon people, and in
levying blackmail upon Americans in
Europe. He adds:
In some of the States it is expressed in their
statutes that parties may marry themselves by
merely expressed consent. In other States such
marriages or verbal contracts are, by the stat
tes, pronounced invalid. In the statutes of still
other states where nothing is provided concern
ing such marriages, the Courts take ii upon
themselves holding upon precedent to deny
the validity OF such marriages. In fact it de
Ponds entirely upon where you happen to be
whether your wife is your wife there or not, or
whether you have been properly divorced, or
your divorced wife in another State is your real
wife in that state, or whether you may be ar
rested for bigamy, or allowed to live quietly in
polygamy, or held to be free and untranmeled,
and eligible to marriage in other States. In
fact, the Kaleidoscope possibilities of complica-
tons and contradictions under our present mar
riage laws are almost limitless and quite over
whelming when seriously contemplated.
This is all true, and it is humiliating
that it is true. There should be uniform
ity in our marriage laws. That there is
not, is solely due to our love of traditions.
There is not, in all probability, a citizen in
the United States who, if asked for
reasonable objection against a uniform mar
rage law, would or could raise ore.
But when our Legislatures assemble
in the several States, it is found to he ex-
tremely difficult, and to this time practi-
cally impossible to induce any one of
them to abandon the several old systems.
And those who have given the matter
study are wholly unable to assign a reason
for this general clinging to the old meth
DDS. 1t is everywhere admitted that since
the comfy OF the law wisely re-
quires us to recognize as man and wife IN
our own State, couple married according
10 the laws of another State, still there are
retained upon statute books in some States
laws that declare relations Illegal in cases
that with us are lawful. The demand
now is that Congress shall pass uniform
Marriage Act But the question arising
has Congress this authority" the burden
OF legal response Is in the negative. To
give Congress the power, a constitutional
amendment would he necessary, and the
people are exceeding jealous of charging
the authority of the Federal Government.
Another plan proposed, we believe by the
Albany Lar Journal originally, has been
recently revived, and it would appear to
be far the speedier plan OF action. That is
to induce the Governors of the States to
call council of representative men of the
States, TO consider and agree upon such
code relative to marriage as would most
likely prove acceptable to the greater
number of the States. OF course, it will
he seen that the great stumbling blocks in
the path to the desired contamination are
the varying divorce laws of the several
States. When we seek to unity these we
encounter problem by no means easy of
solution. Uniformity of marriage laws
would, as they relate mainly to ceremony
and evidences of contract, etc, be of
no earthly use, unless we could
agree also upon the Status of
the divorced people of the several States
If New York prohibits the remarriage of
the guilty party in a divorce case for any
cause, and California does not for any
cause, il is obvious that to the mutual re-
cognition of marriage of parties pro
nibited from the relation under the laws of
the Empire State, New York must Weld
her law to ours, thing she is wholly I'M
likely to do. II has been suggested that
such a State might compromise the cues
ton with States differing with it, regard
ing such matter, by agreeing to recognize
marriages according to the laws of the
State in which they take place. But it
has been replied to this that it would not
establish uniformity, and would be simply
providing Gretna Greens and Scottish Inns
ia one State for the convenience OF the pro-
scribed of another State If there is to be
any common plane attained in this matter,
It must be on the basis of agreement upon
common causes for divorce, common penal
ties for the guilty parties, and common re-
quirements for legal marriage. We very
much fear that the day when these agree
ments will be settled between the States is
far distant. And yet we are all agreed
that there is scarcely any social subject