Commentaries on the Conflicts of Laws

Commentaries on the Conflicts of Laws: Foreign and Domestic in Regard to Contracts, Rights, and Remedies, and Especially in Regard to Marriages, Divorces, Wills, Successions, and Judgments (Volume 1)
By Joseph Story, LLD

Contents

I-Introductory Remarks

II-General Maxims of International Jurisprudence

III-National Domicil

IV-Capacity of Persons

V-Marriage

VI-Incidents to Marriages

VII-Foreign Divorces

VIII-Foreign Contracts

Excerpt from Chapter I

The earth has long since been divided into distinct nations, inhabiting different regions, speaking different languages, engaged in different pursuits, and attached to different forms of government. It is natural that, under such circumstances, there should be many variances in their institutions, customs, laws, and polity', and that these variances should result sometimes from accident, and sometimes from design, sometimes from superior skill and knowledge of local interests, and sometimes from a choice founded in ignorance and supported by the prejudices of imperfect civilization. Climate and geographical position, and the physical adaptations springing from them, must at all times have had a powerful influence in the organization of each society, and have given a peculiar complexion and character to many of its arrangements. The bold, intrepid, and hardy natives of the north of Europe, whether civilized or barbarous, would scarcely desire or tolerate the indolent inactivity and luxurious indulgences of the Asiatics. Nations inhabiting the borders of the ocean, and accustomed to maritime intercourse with other nations, would naturally require institutions and laws adapted to their pursuits and enterprises, which would be wholly unfit for those who should be placed in the interior of a continent, and should maintain very different relations with their neighbors, both in peace and war. Accordingly we find that, from the earliest records of authentic history, there has been (as far at least as we can trace them) little uniformity in the laws, usages, policy, and institutions either of contiguous or of distant nations. The Egyptians, the Medes, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans differed not more in their characters and employments from each other, than in their institutions and laws. They had little desire to learn or to borrow from each other; and indifference, if not contempt, was the habitual state of almost every ancient nation in regard to the internal polity of...

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