[71] Compare the act of March 2, 1897: Acts and Resolves (1897), 232, 233, with that of March 15, 1899: ibid. (1899), 89.
[72] Case of West Cambridge v. Lexington (Oct., 1823), 1 Pickering, 507-12. The act of 1785 provides that the penalties for "polygamy," which it prescribes, shall not extend "to any person that is or shall be at the time of such marriage divorced, by sentence of any Court ... unless such person is the guilty cause of such divorce."—Acts and Laws (Reprint, Boston, 1784), 118; also in Perpetual Laws of the Com. of Mass., I, 217, 218. The act of 1786, chap. 69, provides that all "marriages where either of the parties shall have a former wife or husband living at the time of such marriage, shall be absolutely void."—Perpetual Laws of the Com., I, 301. This provision is ambiguous, and might of itself seem to make void the marriage even of the innocent party to a divorce; but, in the case just cited, the court held: "Supposing the legislature to have considered the parties to a marriage which had been dissolved as standing in the relation of husband and wife, so far as to bring them within the purview of the former statute [that of 1785], it will follow that a marriage of persons so situated would be void. It is true, that by this statute [that of 1786] standing by itself, the marriage of an innocent party to a divorce would not be protected; but the statutes, being in pari materia, must be construed together, and the exception in the first cited statute in favor of such persons, would avail."—1 Pickering, 509.
[73] See 1 Pickering, 510, 511.
[74] Case of Putnam v. Putnam, 8 Pickering, 433-35 (Sept., 1829).
[75] Act of March 13, 1841: Acts and Resolves (1841), 371; also in Supp. to Rev. Stat., 1836-53, I, 189.
[76] Act of May 19, 1853: Supp. to Rev. Stat., 1836-53, I, 976.
[77] Act of May 21, 1855, repealing the act of May 19, 1853: Acts and Resolves (1855), 823.
[78] Act of May 11, 1864: Supp. to Gen. Stat., 1860-72, I, 279. But there must be no collusion. See 10 Allen, 276.
[79] Act of June 11, 1873: Supp. to Gen. Stat., 1873-77, 104; Act of June 30, 1874: ibid., 306.
[80] Act of May 6, 1881: Acts and Resolves (1881), 563; Pub. Stat. (1882), 815; Rev. Laws (1902), II, 1355.