urning
to Connecticut, the first wife, joining the second wife and the
administrator of his estate as defendants, petitioned a Connecticut
court for a declaratory judgment. After having placed upon the first
wife the burden of proving that the decedent had not acquired a _bona
fide_ domicile in Nevada, and after giving proper weight to the claims
of power by the Nevada court, the Connecticut court concluded that the
evidence sustained the contentions of the first wife; and in so doing,
it was upheld by the Supreme Court. The cases of Sherrer _v._ Sherrer,
334 U.S. 343 (1948) and Coe _v._ Coe, 334 U.S. 378 (1948), previously
discussed, were declared not to be in point; inasmuch as no personal
service was made upon the first wife, nor did she in any way participate
in the Nevada proceedings. She was not, therefore, precluded from
challenging the finding of the Nevada court that the decedent was, at
the time of the divorce, domiciled in that State.[70]

STATE OF THE LAW TODAY: QUAERE

Upon summation one may speculate as to whether the doctrine of divisible
divorce, as developed by Justice Douglas in Estin _v._ Estin, 334 U.S.
541 (1948), has not become the prevailing standard for determining the
enforceability of foreign divorce decrees. If such be the case, it may
be tenable to assert that an _ex parte_ divorce, founded upon
acquisition of domicile by one spouse in the State which granted it, is
effective to destroy the marital status of both parties in the State of
domiciliary origin and probably in all other States and therefore to
preclude subsequent prosecutions for bigamy, but not to alter rights as
to property, alimony, or custody of children in the State of domiciliary
origin of a spouse who was neither served nor personally appeared.

DECREES AWARDING ALIMONY, CUSTODY OF CHILDREN

Resulting as a by-product of divorce litigation are decrees for the
payment of alimony, judgments for accrued and unpaid instalments of
alimony, and judicial awards of the custody of children, all of which
necessitate application of the full faith and credit clause when
extrastate enforcement is sought for them. Thus a judgment in State A
for alimony in arrears and payable under a prior judgment of separation
which is not by its terms conditional, nor subject by the law of State A
to modification or recall, and on which execution was directed to issue,
is entitled to recognition in the forum State. Although an obligation
for accr