Have divorces always been universally recognized across the US?

Factual Questions
1

OK, as per Bricker, it is apparently obviously incorrect that a marriage which is valid in one region of the US would automatically be valid in every region of the US.

Let’s apply this logic to divorces.

Let’s say jurisdiction A is [del]next to get The Bomb[/del] quaintly old-fashioned and requires spouses convince a judge that a marriage is not so much on the rocks but shaken, stirred, and washed up on the beach before a someone-screwed(-up) divorce can be granted. Further imagine they have laws against bigamy and The Unnatural And Infamous Crime Against Nature, which is, naturally (not that one… or that one… is that possible… ) fornication, defined as sex outside of marriage. No, that one won’t survive an appeal. Neither will your bank account.

Jurisdiction R is Reno, Nevada. (Ask your grandparents.)

A couple from A takes a direct flight from Niagara Falls to R and slowly they turned their lives around, getting married in R as well. They go back to A, together and separately, with new people to dance cheek-to-cheek-to-cheek… with.

Judge Election Winner and Prosecutor Ura Nother (who is smoothly differentiable from the opponent) decide that just because the divorce is valid in R doesn’t mean it’s worth anything here, where pre-2005 laws are still on the books. Therefore, our inestimable reverse elopers are still married in the eyes of A, which are upon them, and see fit to drag them in to court for doing what they’re doing with people other than each other.

(That is, their public conduct is bigamy because their marriages in R are invalid, as their divorces are invalid, and their private conduct is fornication, because bigamous marriages are nullities and this jurisdiction pretends that Lawrence never messed with Texas.)

So, given that marriage recognition is not a given, are divorces made of more recognizable stuff? Was this more of an issue prior to 1970 and the rise of the no-fault divorce? Will anyone get any of my references? Answers to all these questions… urk

2

Unlike marriage, divorce is a court judgment, and so is subject to the Full Faith and Credit clause of the U.S. Constitution. Your illusory court officers have no discretion in the matter.

However, they can still be dicks about the subsequent marriages, though they’d probably be breaking their own laws to do so. I think.

3

Interesting. Then I might have to use my illusory court officers in some other hypothetical.

I guess this means that Ronald Reagan is effectively responsible for legalizing no-fault divorces in all fifty states and change. Makes sense, given his history. Thanks, Reagan!

4

I don’t have a cite, but I vaguely recall reading an article about the history of divorce tourism to Nevada and that the recognition of divorce decrees from that state in other parts of the United States wasn’t always straightforward.:confused:

5

A marriage (at least one celebrated in accordance with state law) is a “public act” and also subject to the FF&C Clause. That doesn’t mean other states have to recognize it though. It’s certainly not out of the question that a state could refuse to recognize a foreign divorce on public policy grounds; that is, on the same basis as some refuse to recognize same-sex marriages (or certain degrees of consanginuous marriages, among other things.)

For example, states may refuse to recognize an ex parte divorce (one where the other spouse was not on notice of the divorce proceeding), or one which does not make provision for child or spousal support, or one which disposes of property located in the “new” state. It is true that foreign divorces get “more” faith and credit than other proceedings, though.

6

I have had passing interest in the Nevada divorce industry and while I also can’t provide any cites, I recall some hurdles to getting a Nevada divorce recognized in some other jurisdiction. It’s entirely possible that’s a fictional situation, as there are any number of novels - mostly characterized as “racy” - that were based on that industry.

I would not be at all surprised to find that some Southern and Nwingland states had draconian “prove it” laws.

7

In 1950, my mother-in-law spent 6 weeks in Reno (to establish formal residence there), got divorced and then returned and remarried. Although she moved from NY to NJ in the process, but there was no question of the recognition of the divorce.

8

What you describe was the situation in New York state up until the mid-60s, when the only grounds for divorce was adultery. It led to fake adultery, where someone would pretend to be the man or woman’s lover in order to get a divorce. If you had the money, you flew to Reno and got divorced there, or got a divorce overseas.

9

The difficulty of getting divorced in the northeast led to a divorce industry in western states, places that sought to boost divorce tourism, which meant income from lodging, food, activities, etc., by offering expanded grounds for divorce and shorter residencies. But Nevada wasn’t the first. The “west” started in Indiana in the 19th century, long before Nevada became a state. Then the Dakotas and Utah. Nevada joined in around 1910 and became the capital of divorce in 1931, when the state lowered the residency to six weeks.

On the flip side, the South Carolina constitution outlawed divorce from 1895 to 1949. AFAIK, Just because you couldn’t get a divorce there didn’t mean the state didn’t recognize divorces granted elsewhere.

Just as there were idiots in South Carolina, there are idiots today. Just as South Carolina was forced to bow to reality, so will every other state. No doubt they will throw roadblocks on the route to the future, but the future always wins.