[281] _Compilation of Laws of Ga._ (1812), 313.
[282] For instance, see HOTCHKISS, _Codification_ (1845), 331; COBB, _Analysis_ (1846), 294 ff.; COBB, _Digest_ (1851), 226 ff.
[283] _Acts_ (1872), 14; _ibid._ (1879), 51; also in _Code of Ga._ (1896), II, 29, 30. A "verdict of divorce in 1866 will not authorize the guilty party to marry again without proof of a decree of court authorizing to marry."--62 _Ga._, 408.
By the Tennessee statute of 1799 no restraint is put upon immediate remarriage in any case of divorce, except where the cause is infidelity, when the guilty defendant may not marry the person with whom the crime was committed during the lifetime of the former spouse.[284] This provision still appears unchanged in the code.[285] The offender is dealt with in precisely the same way by the Kentucky law of 1809; and by it also the injured spouse is permitted to marry again only after two years.[286] In 1820 the innocent person is relieved from all restraint;[287] both parties are treated as "single" persons in 1843;[288] and likewise by the present statute, in all cases of divorce, no matter what the cause, guilty and innocent alike are absolutely free to form new marriages whenever it shall please them so to do.[289] The same freedom exists in Arizona, New Mexico, Arkansas, Indian Territory, Texas, West Virginia, and Missouri; although in the last-named state until 1885 the guilty defendant was not permitted to remarry for five years, "unless otherwise expressed in the decree of the court."[290] Since 1857, in Mississippi, by a more stringent clause "the decree may provide, in the discretion of the court, that a party against whom a divorce is granted because of adultery shall not be at liberty to marry again;" but the freedom of the successful plaintiff is unrestrained.[291] In 1824 the Alabama assembly in all cases forbade the guilty person to remarry; but this prohibition was removed by an act of February, 1870, which, however, lasted only until April, 1873, when it in turn was repealed. By the existing code the chancellor in making his decree may, according to the evidence and nature of the case, direct whether the party, against whom the decree is rendered, shall be permitted to marry again; and in decrees now or hereafter rendered, when no order is made allowing or disallowing the divorced person to remarry, he may on petition and proper proof allow or disallow the petitioner to form a new marriage.[292] It is constituted bigamy in Oklahoma for either divorced person to remarry within six months after the divorce, or until thirty days after final judgment, if appeal be taken. Every decree of divorce shall recite that it "does not become absolute and take effect until the expiration of six months" from the day when it was rendered.[293] According to the Louisiana law, since 1808--at least until 1888--the wife cannot remarry until ten months after dissolution of the contract, whether by death, divorce, or decree of nullity.[294] In case of divorce for infidelity the offender may not marry his or her accomplice; and this last provision has been in force since 1827.[295] Under the same conditions as in Louisiana, the woman in Porto Rico may not marry during a period of three hundred and one days after dissolution of the marriage, or until a child is born if she be pregnant at the time of the husband's death.[296] By the criminal code of Florida, apparently, the guilty party may not rewed.[297]