(2 of 2)
8) Decree is filed with the maire or registrar in the district where the petitioner is domiciled, within two months after the decree becomes final. The Situation. The extent, particularly with respect to property questions, to which these so-called Paris divorces will be recognized in the U. S. is still an open question. A U. S. Court has never determined whether, upon the subsequent remarriage of a man or woman divorced in Paris, the children of such second marriage would be legitimate so far as inheriting property under a will or deed of trust is involved. Edith Kelly Gould, second wife of Frank Gould, attacked in New York, on the ground of lack of jurisdiction by the French Courts, the divorce which her husband had obtained in Paris. This divorce was sustained, but the question is not considered closed. That there should be a doubt of the validity in the U. S. of Paris divorces is not surprising, in view of the conditions of the U.S. law.
Says Milton Ives Livy in his thoughtful brochure, Marriage and Divorce:
"We thus have prevailing in the United States a system of laws which allows of parties being divorced in one state but not in another; of a marriage being valid in one state but invalid elsewhere; of a child being a lawful heir in one and illegitimate in another; and of a man, not a Mormon, having two legal wives, changing one or the other according as he moves from one state to another, and which as we have seen, operates to make those entirely innocent the principle sufferers."
The Remedy. The commission on uniform laws (TIME, Dec. 22) has never drafted a uniform divorce law. There have, from time to time, however, been vigorous campaigns to obtain an Amendment to the Constitution and a uniform Federal divorce law. The Pictorial Review recently conducted such a campaign and obtained in behalf of its proposed Federal law the support of many women's organizations and prominent individuals.