While I was Googling around for the answer to my other marriage question, I found another question.
How did the states used to deal with mixed marriages in the old days. I have found many states a long time back refused to allow blacks and whites, or blacks and (as they called them then) Orientals, or whatever various groups to marry.
I also read that the full faith and credit portion of the constitution isn’t applicable to marriage and it seems to be the case as we did have laws prohibiting races from marrying and now Massachusetts gay marriage have no validity in other states.
So how does or did that work. If you were black and white and married in a state that said it was OK, you could move to a state that didn’t recognize it and remarry. Then you’d be guilty of bigamy in the first state but not the second?
I realize in the old days (I believe the laws against mixed race marriages were overturned by the supreme court in the late 60s) people were less mobile, but I guess divorce laws were similar too.
I read an autobiography of Rita Hayworth and when she married Dickie Haymes she and he were afraid to return to California, because that state didn’t recognize Nevada’s divorces and Dickie was divorced there and Dickie’s wife wanted back child support (Haymes and his wife were legally seperated) and alimony and since Haymes didn’t have any money, they were attempting to collect from Rita Hayworth if she stepped foot in California (which caused her grief cause it’s a bit hard for a movie star NOT to go to California. Off topic “If this were happiness” Hayworth’s bio was a great book)
So anyway back on topic, was it just a bunch of laws and you better know which ones applied where you were going?