Williams v. North Carolina

317 U.S. 287, 63 S. Ct. 207, 87 L. Ed. 279, 1942 U.S. LEXIS 2

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: January 4, 1943
• Docket: 29
• Status: Published

Opinions

Mr. Justice Douglas

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioners were tried and convicted of bigamous cohabitation under § 4342 of the North Carolina Code,¹ 1939, and each was sentenced for a term of years to a state prison. The judgment of conviction was affirmed by the Supreme Court of North Carolina. 220 N. C. 445, 17 S. E. 2d 769. The case is here on certiorari.

Petitioner Williams was married to Carrie Wyke in 1916 in North Carolina and lived with her there until May, 1940. Petitioner Hendrix was married to Thomas Hendrix in 1920 in North Carolina and lived with him there until May, 1940. At that time petitioners went to Las Vegas, Nevada, and on June 26, 1940, each filed a divorce action in the Nevada court. The defendants in those divorce actions entered no appearance nor were they served with process in Nevada. In the case of defendant Thomas Hendrix, service by publication was had by publication of the summons in a Las Vegas newspaper and by mailing a copy of the summons and complaint to his last post-office address.² In the case of defendant Carrie Williams, a North Carolina sheriff delivered to her in North Carolina a copy of the summons and complaint. A decree (ff divorce was granted petitioner Williams by the Nevada court on August 26, 1940, on the ground of extreme cruelty, the court finding that “the plaintiff has been and now is a bona fide and continuous resident of the County of Clark, State of Nevada, and had been such resident for more than six weeks immediately preceding the commencement of this action in the manner prescribed by law.”³ The Nevada court granted petitioner Hendrix a divorce on October 4, 1940, on the grounds of wilful neglect and extreme cruelty, and made the same finding as to this petitioner’s bona fide residence in Nevada as it made in the case of Williams. Petitioners were married to each other in Nevada on October 4, 1940. Thereafter they returned to North Carolina where they lived together until the indictment was returned. Petitioners pleaded not guilty and offered in evidence exemplified copies of the Nevada proceedings, contending that the divorce decrees and the Nevada marriage were valid in North Carolina as well as in Nevada. The State contended that since neither of the defendants in the Nevada actions was served in Nevada nor entered an appearance there, the Nevada decrees would not be recognized as valid in North Carolina. On this issue the court charged the jury in substance that a Nevada divorce decree based on substituted service where the defendant made no appearance would not be recognized in North Carolina, under the rule of Pridgen v. Pridgen, 203 N. C. 533, 166 S. E. 591. The State further contended that petitioners went to Nevada not to establish a bona fide residence but solely for the purpose of taking advantage of the laws of that State to obtain a divorce through fraud upon that court. On that issue the court charged the jury that, under the rule of State v. Herron, 175 N. C. 754, 94 S. E. 698, the defendants had the burden of satisfying the jury, but not beyond a reasonable doubt, of the bona fides of their residence in Nevada for the required time. Petitioners excepted to these charges. The Supreme Court of North Carolina in affirming the judgment held that North Carolina was not required to recognize the Nevada decrees under the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution (Art. IY, § 1) by reason of Haddock v. Haddock, 201 U. S. 562. The intimation in the majority opinion (220 N. C. pp. 460-464) that the Nevada divorces were collusive suggests that the second theory on which the State tried the case may have been an alternative ground for the decision below, adequate to sustain the judgment under the rule of Bell v. Bell, 181 U. S. 175—a case in which this Court held that a decree of divorce was not entitled to full faith and credit when it had been granted on constructive service by the courts of a state in which neither spouse was domiciled. But there are two reasons why we do not reach that issue in this case. In the first place, North Carolina does not seek to sustain the judgment below on that ground. Moreover it admits that there probably is enough evidence in the record to require that petitioners be considered “to have been actually domiciled in Nevada.” In the second place, the verdict against petitioners was a general one. Hence, even though the doctrine of Bell v. Bell, supra, were to be deemed applicable here, we cannot determine on this record that petitioners were not convicted on the other theory-on which the case was tried and submitted, viz. the invalidity of the Nevada decrees because of Nevada’s lack of jurisdiction over the defendants in the divorce suits. That is to say, the verdict of the jury for all we know may have been rendered on that ground alone, since it did not specify the basis on which it rested. It therefore follows here as in Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359, 368, that if one of the grounds for conviction is invalid under the Federal Constitution, the judgment cannot be sustained. No reason has been suggested why the rule of the Stromberg case is inapplicable here. Nor has any reason been advanced why the rule of the Stromberg case is not both appropriate and necessary for the protection of rights of the accused. To say that a general verdict of guilty should be upheld though we cannot know that it did not rest on the invalid constitutional ground on which the case was submitted to the jury, would be to countenance a procedure which would cause a serious impairment of constitutional rights. Accordingly, we cannot avoid meeting the Haddock v. Haddock issue in this case by saying that the petitioners acquired no bona fide domicil in Nevada. If the case had been tried and submitted on that issue only, we would have quite a different problem, as Bell v. Bell indicates. We have no occasion to meet that issue now and we intimate no opinion on it. However it might be resolved in another proceeding, we cannot evade the constitutional issue in this case on the easy assumption that petitioners’ domicil in Nevada was a sham and a fraud. Rather, we must treat the present case for the purpose of the limited issue before us precisely the same as if petitioners had resided in Nevada for a term of years and had long ago acquired a permanent abode there. In other words, we would reach the question whether North Carolina could refuse to recognize the Nevada decrees because, in its view and contrary to the findings of the Nevada court, petitioners had no actual, bona fide domicil in Nevada, if and only if we concluded that Haddock v. Haddock was correctly decided. But we do not think it was.

The Haddock case involved a suit for separation and alimony, brought in New York by the wife on personal service of the husband. The husband pleaded in defense a divorce decree obtained by him in Connecticut where he had established a separate domicil. This Court held that New York, the matrimonial domicil where the wife still resided, need not give full faith and credit to the Connecticut decree, since it was obtained by the husband who wrongfully left his wife in the matrimonial domicil, service on her having been obtained by publication and she not having entered an appearance in the action. But we do not agree with the theory of the Haddock case that, so far as the marital status of the parties is concerned,⁴ a decree of divorce granted under such circumstances by one state need not be given full faith and credit in another.

Article IV, § 1 of the Constitution not only directs that “Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State” but also provides that “Congress may by general laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.” Congress has exercised that power. By the Act of May 26, 1790, c. 11, 28 U. S. C. 687, Congress has provided that judgments “shall have such faith and credit given to them in every court within the United States as they have by law or usage in the courts of the State from which they are taken.” Chief Justice Marshall stated in Hampton v. M’Connel, 3 Wheat. 234, 235, that “the judgment of a state court should have the same credit, validity, and effect, in every other court in the United States, which it had in the state where it was pronounced, and that whatever pleas would be good to a suit thereon in such state, and none others, could be pleaded in any other court in the United States.” That view has survived substantially intact. Fauntleroy v. Lum, 210 U. S. 230. This Court only recently stated that Art. IV, § 1 and the Act of May 26, 1790 require that “not some, but full” faith and credit be given judgments of a state court. Davis v. Davis, 306 U. S. 32, 40. Thus, even though the cause of action could not be entertained in the state of the forum, either because it had been barred by the local statute of limitations or contravened local policy, the judgment thereon obtained in a sister state is entitled to full faith and credit. See Christmas v. Russell, 5 Wall. 290; Fauntleroy v. Lum, supra; Kenney v. Supreme Lodge, 262 U. S. 411; Titus v. Wallick, 306 U. S. 282, 291. Some exceptions have been engrafted on the rule laid down by Chief Justice Marshall. But as stated by Mr. Justice Brandéis in Broderick v. Rosner, 294 U. S. 629, 642, “the room left for the play of conflicting policies is a narrow one.” So far as judgments are concerned, the decisions,⁵ as distinguished from dicta,⁶ show that the actual exceptions have been few and far between, apart from Haddock v. Haddock. For this Court has been reluctant to admit exceptions in case of judgments rendered by the courts of a sister state, since the “very purpose” of Art. IV, § 1 was “to alter the status of the several states as independent foreign sovereignties, each free to ignore obligations created under the laws or by the judicial proceedings of the others, and to make them integral parts of a single nation.” Milwaukee County v. White Co., supra, pp. 276-277.

This Court, to be sure, has recognized that in case of statutes, “the extra-state effect of which Congress has not prescribed,” some “accommodation of the conflicting interests of the two states” is necessary. Alaska Packers Assn. v. Industrial Accident Comm’n, 294 U. S. 532, 547. But that principle would come into play only in case the Nevada decrees were assailed on the ground that Nevada must give full faith and credit in its divorce proceedings to the divorce statutes of North Carolina. Even then, it would be of no avail here. For as stated in .the Alaska Packers case, “Prima facie every state is entitled to enforce in its own courts its own statutes, lawfully enacted. One who challenges that right, because of the force given to a conflicting statute of another state by the full faith and credit clause, assumes the burden of showing, upon some rational basis, that of the conflicting interests involved those of the foreign state are superior to those of the forum.” Id., pp. 547-548. It is difficult to perceive how North Carolina could be said to have an interest in Nevada’s domiciliaries superior to the interest of Nevada. Nor is there any authority which lends support to the view that the full faith and credit clause compels the courts of one state to subordinate the local policy of that state, as respects its domiciliaries, to the statutes of any other state. Certainly Bradford Electric Co. v. Clapper, 286 U. S. 145, did not so hold. Indeed, the recent case of Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. Industrial Accident Comm’n, 306 U. S. 493, 502, held that in the case of statutes “the full faith and credit clause does not require one state to substitute for its own statute, applicable to persons and events within it, the conflicting statute of another state, even though that statute is of controlling force in the courts of the state of its enactment with respect to the same persons and events.”

Moreover, Haddock v. Haddock is not based on the contrary theory. Nor did it hold that a decree of divorce granted by the courts of one state need not be given full faith and credit in another if the grounds for the divorce would not be recognized by the courts of the forum. It does not purport to challenge or disturb the rule, earlier established by Christmas v. Russell, supra, and subsequently fortified by Fauntleroy v. Lum, supra, that, even though the cause of action could not have been entertained in the state of the forum, a judgment obtained thereon in a sister state is entitled to full faith and credit. For the majority opinion in the Haddock case accepted both Cheever v. Wilson, 9 Wall. 108, and Atherton v. Atherton, 181 U. S. 155. Cheever v. Wilson held that a decree of divorce granted by a state in which one spouse was domiciled and which had personal jurisdiction over the other was as conclusive in other states as it was in the state where it was obtained. Atherton v. Atherton held that full faith and credit must be given a decree of divorce granted by the state of the matrimonial domicil on constructive service against the other spouse who was a non-resident of that state. The decisive difference between those cases and Haddock v. Haddock was said to be that, in the latter, the state granting the divorce had no jurisdiction over the absent spouse, since it was not the state of the matrimonial domicil, but the place where the husband had acquired a separate domicil after having wrongfully left his wife. This Court accordingly classified Haddock v. Haddock with that group of cases which hold that when the courts of one state do not have jurisdiction either of the subject matter or of the person of the defendant, the courts of another state are not required by virtue of the full faith and credit clause to enforce the judgment.⁷ But such differences in result between Haddock v. Haddock and the cases which preceded it rest on distinctions which in our view are immaterial, so far as the full faith and credit clause and the supporting legislation are concerned.

The historical view that a proceeding for a divorce was a proceeding in rem (2 Bishop, Marriage & Divorce, 4th ed., § 164) was rejected by the Haddock case. We likewise agree that it does not aid in the solution of the problem presented by this case to label these proceedings as proceedings in rem. Such a suit, however, is not a mere in personam action. Domicil of the plaintiff, immaterial to jurisdiction in a personal action, is recognized in the Haddock case and elsewhere (Beale, Conflict of Laws, § 110.1) as essential in order to give the court jurisdiction which will entitle the divorce decree to extraterritorial effect, at least when the defendant has neither been personally served nor entered an appearance. The findings made in the divorce decrees in the instant case must be treated on the issue before us as meeting those requirements. For it seems clear that the provision of the Nevada statute that a plaintiff in this type of case must “reside” in the State for the required period⁸ requires him to have a domicil,⁹ as distinguished from a mere residence, in the state. Latterner v. Latterner, 51 Nev. 285, 274 P. 194; Lamb v. Lamb, 57 Nev. 421, 65 P. 2d 872. Hence, the decrees in this case, like other divorce decrees, are more than in personam judgments. They involve the marital status of the parties. Domicil creates a relationship to the state which is adequate for numerous exercises of state power. See Lawrence v. State Tax Commission, 286 U. S. 276, 279; New York ex rel. Cohn v. Graves, 300 U. S. 308, 313; Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U. S. 457, 463-464; Skiriotes v. Florida, 313 U. S. 69. Each state as a sovereign has a rightful and legitimate concern in the marital status of persons domiciled within its borders. The marriage relation creates problems of large social importance. ' Protection of offspring, property interests, and the enforcement of marital responsibilities are but a few of commanding problems in the field of domestic relations with which the state must deal. Thus it is plain that each state, by virtue of its command over its domiciliaries and its large interest in the institution of marriage, can alter within its own borders the marriage status of the spouse domiciled there, even though the other spouse is absent. There is no constitutional barrier if the form and nature of the substituted service (see Milliken v. Meyer, supra, p. 463) meet the requirements of due process. Atherton v. Atherton, supra, p. 172. Accordingly, it was admitted in the Haddock case that the divorce decree, though not recognized in New York, was binding on both spouses in Connecticut where granted. 201 U. S. 569, 572, 575, 579. And this Court in Maynard, v. Hill, 125 U. S. 190, upheld the validity within the Territory of Oregon of a divorce decree granted by the legislature to a husband domiciled there, even though the wife resided in Ohio where the husband had deserted her. It therefore follows that, if the Nevada decrees are taken at their full face value (as they must be on the phase of the case with which we are presently concerned), they were wholly effective to change in that state the marital status of the petitioners and each of the other spouses by the North Carolina marriages. Apart from the requirements of procedural due process (Atherton v. Atherton, supra, p. 172) not challenged here by North Carolina, no reason based on the Federal Constitution has been advanced for the contrary conclusion. But the concession that the decrees were effective in Nevada makes more compelling the reasons for rejection of the theory and result of the Haddock case.

This Court stated in Atherton v. Atherton, supra, p. 162, that “A husband without a wife, or a wife without a husband, is unknown to the law.” But if one is lawfully divorced and remarried in Nevada and still married to the first spouse in North Carolina, an even more complicated and serious condition would be realized. We would then have what the Supreme Court of Illinois declared to be the “most perplexing and distressing complications in the domestic relations of many citizens in the different States.” Dunham v. Dunham, 162 Ill. 589, 607. Under the circumstances of this case, a man would have two wives, a wife two husbands. The reality of a sentence to prison proves that that is no mere play on words. Each would be a bigamist for living in one state with the only one with whom the other state would permit him lawfully to live. Children of the second marriage would be bastards in one state but legitimate in the other. And all that would flow from the legalistic notion that where one spouse is wrongfully deserted he retains power over the matrimonial domicil so that the domicil of the other spouse follows him wherever he may go, while, if he is to blame, he retains no such power. But such considerations are inapposite. As stated by Mr. Justice Holmes in his dissent in the Haddock case (201 U. S. p. 630), they constitute a “pure fiction, and fiction always is a poor ground for changing substantial rights.” Furthermore, the fault or wrong of one spouse in leaving the other becomes under that view a jurisdictional fact on which this Court would ultimately have to pass. Whatever may be said as to the practical effect which such a rule would have in clouding divorce decrees, the question as to where the fault lies has no relevancy to the existence of state power in such circumstances. See Bingham, In the Matter of Haddock v. Haddock, 21 Corn. L. Q. 393, 426. The existence of the power of a state to alter the marital status of its domiciliaries, as distinguished from the wisdom of its exercise, is not dependent on the underlying causes of the domestic rift. As we have said, it is dependent on the relationship which domicil creates and the pervasive control which a state has over marriage and divorce within its own borders. Atherton v. Atherton, which preceded Haddock v. Haddock, and Thompson v. Thompson, 226 U. S. 551, which followed it, recognized that the power of the state of the matrimonial domicil to grant a divorce from the absent spouse did not depend on whether his departure from the state was or was not justified. As stated above, we see no reason, and none has here been advanced, for making the existence of state power depend on an inquiry as to where the fault in each domestic dispute lies. And it is difficult to prick out any such line of distinction in the generality of the words of the full faith and credit clause. Moreover, so far as state power is concerned, no distinction between a matrimonial domicil and a domicil later acquired has been suggested or is apparent. See Mr. Justice Holmes dissenting, Haddock v. Haddock, supra, p. 631; Goodrich, Matrimonial Domicile, 27 Yale L. Journ. 49. It is one thing to say as a matter of state law that jurisdiction to grant a divorce from an absent spouse should depend on whether by consent or by conduct the latter has subjected his interest in the marriage status to the law of the separate domicil acquired by the other spouse. Beale, Conflict of Laws, § 113.11; Restatement, Conflict of Laws, § 113. But where a state adopts, as it has the power to do, a less strict rule, it is quite another thing to say that its decrees affecting the marital status of its domiciliaries are not entitled to full faith and credit in sister states. Certainly if decrees of a state altering the marital status of its domiciliaries are not valid throughout the Union even though the requirements of procedural due process are wholly met, a rule would be fostered which could not help but bring “considerable disaster to innocent persons” and “bastardize children hitherto supposed to be the offspring of lawful marriage” (Mr. Justice Holmes dissenting in Haddock v. Haddock, supra, p. 628), or else encourage collusive divorces. Beale, Constitutional Protection of Decrees for Divorce, 19 Harv. L. Rev. 586, 596. These intensely practical considerations emphasize for us the essential function of the full faith and credit clause in substituting a command for the former principles of comity (Broderick v. Rosner, supra, p. 643) and in altering the “status of the several states as independent foreign sovereignties” by making them “integral parts of a single nation.” Milwaukee County v. White Co., supra, p. 277.

It is objected, however, that if such divorce decrees must be given full faith and credit, a substantial dilution of the sovereignty of other states will be effected. For it is pointed out that under such a rule one state’s policy of strict control over the institution of marriage could be thwarted by the decree of a more lax state. But such an objection goes to the application of the full faith and credit clause to many situations. It is an objection in varying degrees of intensity to the enforcement of a judgment of a sister state based on a cause of action which could not be enforced in the state of the forum. Mississippi’s policy against gambling transactions was overridden in Fauntleroy v. Lum, supra, when a Missouri judgment based on such a Mississippi contract was enforced by this Court. Such is part of the price of our federal system.

This Court, of course, is the final arbiter when the question is raised as to what is a permissible limitation on the full faith and credit clause. Alaska Packers Assn. v. Industrial Accident Comm’n, supra, p. 547; Milwaukee County v. White Co., supra, p. 274. But the question for us is a limited one. In the first place, we repeat that in this case we must assume that petitioners had a bona fide domicil in Nevada, not that .the Nevada domicil was a sham. We thus have no question on the present record whether a divorce decree granted by the courts of one state to a resident, as distinguished from a domiciliary, is entitled to full faith and credit in another state. Nor do we reach here the question as to the power of North Carolina to refuse full faith and credit to Nevada divorce decrees because, contrary to the findings of the Nevada court, North Carolina finds that no bona fide domicil was acquired in Nevada. In the second place, the question as to what is a permissible limitation on the full faith and credit clause does not involve a decision on our part as to which state policy on divorce is the most desirable one. It does not involve selection of a rule which will encourage on the one hand or discourage on the other the practice of divorce. That choice in the realm of morals and religion rests with the legislatures of the states. Our own views as to the marriage institution and the avenues of escape which some states have created are immaterial. It is a Constitution which we are expounding — a Constitution which in no small measure brings separate sovereign states into an integrated whole through-the medium of the full faith and credit clause. Within the limits of her political power North Carolina may, of course, enforce her own policy regarding the marriage relation — an institution more basic in our civilization than any other. But society also has an interest in the avoidance of polygamous marriages (Loughran v. Loughran, 292 U. S. 216, 223) and in the protection of innocent offspring of marriages deemed legitimate in other jurisdictions. And other states have an equally legitimate concern in the status of persons domiciled there as respects the institution of marriage. So, when a court of one state acting in accord with the requirements of procedural due process alters the marital status of one domiciled in that state by granting him a divorce from his absent spouse, we cannot say its decree should be excepted from the full faith and credit clause merely because its enforcement or recognition in another state would conflict with the policy of the latter. Whether Congress has the power to create exceptions (see Yarborough v. Yarborough, 290 U. S. 202, 215, nt. 2, dissenting opinion) is a question on which we express no view. It is sufficient here to note that Congress, in its sweeping requirement that judgments of the courts of one state be given full faith and credit in the courts of another, has not done so. And the considerable interests involved, and the substantial and far-reaching effects which the allowance of an exception would have on innocent persons, indicate that the purpose of the full faith and credit clause and of the supporting legislation would be thwarted to a substantial degree if the rule of Haddock v. Haddock were perpetuated.

Haddock v. Haddock is overruled. The judgment is reversed and the cause is remanded to the Supreme Court of North Carolina for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Reversed.

1 Sec. 4342 provides in part: “If any person, being married, shall contract a marriage with any other person outside of this state, which marriage would be punishable as bigamous if contracted within this state, and shall thereafter cohabit with such person in this state, he shall be guilty of a felony and shall be punished as in cases of bigamy. Nothing contained in this section shall extend ... to any person who at the time of such second marriage shall have been lawfully divorced from the bond of the first marriage . . .”

2 Defendant Hendrix had written his wife’s Nevada attorney, “Upon receipt of the original appearance, I will sign the same.” But no appearance was entered and the North Carolina court charged the jury that a promise to make an appearance does not constitute one.

3 Sec. 9460, Nev. Comp. L. 1929, as amended L. 1931, p. 161, provides in part: “Divorce from the bonds of matrimony may be obtained by complaint, under oath, to the district court of any county in which the cause therefor shall have accrued, or in which the defendant shall reside or be found, or in which the plaintiff shall reside, or in which the , parties last cohabited, or if plaintiff shall have resided six weeks in the state before suit be brought, for the following causes, or any other causes provided by law . . .” See. 9467.02 provides that “In all civil eases where the jurisdiction of the court depends upon the residence of. one of the parties to the action, the court shall require corroboration of the evidence of such residence.” L. 1931, p. -277.

4 Thus we have here no question as to extraterritorial effect of a divorce decree insofar as it affects property in another State. See the cases cited, infra, note 5.

5 Fall v. Eastin, 215 U. S. 1; Olmsted v. Olmsted, 216 U. S. 386; Hood v. McGehee, 237 U. S. 611. These decisions refuse to require courts of one state to allow acts or judgments of another to control the disposition or devolution of realty in the former. They seem to rest on tire doctrine that the state where the land is located is “sole mistress” of its rules of real property. See Hood v. McGehee, supra, p. 615; and the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Holmes in Fall v. Eastin, supra, p. 14.

That the case of Anglo-American Provision Co. v. Davis Provision Co., 191 U. S. 373, is not an exception but only an appropriate application of the doctrine of Jorum non conveniens, see Broderick v. Rosner, 294 U. S. 629, 642-643.

6 It has been repeatedly stated that the full faith and credit clause does not require one state to enforce the penal laws of another. See, for example, Huntington v. Attrill, 146 U. S. 657, 666; Converse v. Hamilton, 224 U. S. 243, 260; Bradford Electric Co. v. Clapper, 286 U. S. 145, 160.

But the question of whether a judgment based on a penalty is entitled to full faith and credit was reserved in Milwaukee County v. White Co., 296 U. S. 268, 279.

For other dicta that the application of the full faith and credit clause may be limited by the policy of the law of the forum, see Bradford Electric Co. v. Clapper, supra, p. 160; Alaska Packers Assn. v. Industrial Accident Comm’n, 294 U. S. 532, 546; Broderick v. Rosner, supra, note 5, p. 642.

7 Grover & Baker Machine Co. v. Radcliffe, 137 U. S. 287; National Exchange Bank v. Wiley, 195 U. S. 257; Baker v. Baker, Eccles & Co., 242 U. S. 394; Chicago Life Ins. Co. v. Cherry, 244 U. S. 25, 29; Flexner v. Parson, 248 U. S. 289.

8 Sec. 9460, Nev. Comp. L. 1929, as amended L. 1931, p. 161, supra, note 3.

9 The fact that a stay in a state is not for long is not necessarily fatal to the existence of a domicil. As stated in Williamson v. Osenton, 232 U. S. 619, 624, the “essential fact that raises a change of abode to a change of domicil is the absence of any intention to live elsewhere.” The intention to stay for a time to which a person “did not then contemplate an end” was held sufficient. Id., p. 625. And see District of Columbia v. Murphy, 314 U. S. 441. Nor is there any doubt that a married woman may acquire in this country a domicil separate from her husband. Williamson v. Osenton, supra, pp. 625-626, and cases cited.