[508] _Civil Laws of the Hawaiian Islands_ (1897), 715-21.
_c_) _Remarriage, residence, notice, and miscellaneous provisions._--It has been found convenient in the preceding section to trace throughout the period the development of the New York law regarding the remarriage of divorced persons. By the original statute of 1787, it thus appears, the guilty defendant is forever prohibited from marrying again. Under the acts of 1813 and 1827-28 the restriction is limited to the lifetime of the innocent former spouse; and this rule is retained in the present law, although in harmony with the practice elsewhere widely prevailing, the parties to the action are at liberty to renew their matrimonial vows. The defendant, however, may marry again in case the court in which the judgment is given "shall in that respect modify such judgment, which modification shall only be made upon satisfactory proof that the complainant has remarried, that five years have elapsed since the decree of divorce was rendered, and that the conduct of the defendant since the dissolution of said marriage has been uniformly good."[509] At no time, apparently, has any legal check been put upon the immediate remarriage of the successful plaintiff after final decree; and a way has been found by which the guilty defendant may at once contract further wedlock through evasion of the statute. In 1881 the precedent established by Massachusetts in 1829 was followed by the New York court of appeals. It was then decided that when a husband who has been divorced in New York for his adultery "goes into another state for the purpose of evading our law, and there contracts a second marriage during the lifetime of his former wife, and immediately returns to and resides within this state, such second marriage is, nevertheless, valid, and the issue thereof legitimate."[510] On the other hand, it is held that the restraint applies to the remarriage of divorced persons even when the divorce was granted in another state. Thus dower was "denied on a showing that the deceased husband, while a resident of Massachusetts, had been divorced from his wife for his fault and later had removed to New York and married the plaintiff while his former wife was living. It was held that the New York statutes governed whether the divorce was granted in that state or not, so long as the marriage was celebrated in New York."[511] But elsewhere the courts have taken the opposite position, holding that the restraint on remarriage applies only to divorces granted in the state where it is imposed.[512]