696
Opinion of the Court
of a domestic relations nature contains no mention of the Constitution, see Barber, 21 How., at 584, and it is logical to presume that the Court based its statement limiting such power on narrower statutory, rather than broader constitutional, grounds. Cf. Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Building & Construction Trades Council, 485 U. S. 568, 575 (1988).
Subsequent decisions confirm that Barber was not relying
on constitutional limits in justifying the exception. In one such case, for instance, the Court stated the "long established rule" that federal courts lack jurisdiction over certain domestic relations matters as having been based on the assumptions that "husband and wife cannot usually be citizens of different States, so long as the marriage relation continues (a rule which has been somewhat relaxed in recent cases), and for the further reason that a suit for divorce in itself involves no pecuniary value." De la Rama v. De la Rama, 201 U. S. 303, 307 (1906). Since Article III contains no monetary limit on suits brought pursuant to federal diversity jurisdiction, De la Rama's articulation of the "rule" in terms of the statutory requirements for diversity jurisdiction further supports the view that the exception is not grounded in the Constitution.
Moreover, even while citing with approval the Barber language purporting to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts over domestic relations matters, the Court has heard appeals from territorial courts involving divorce, see, e. g., De la Rama, supra; Simms v. Simms, 175 U. S. 162 (1899), and has upheld the exercise of original jurisdiction by federal courts in the District of Columbia to decide divorce actions, see, e. g., Glidden Co. v. Zdanok, 370 U. S. 530, 581, n. 54 (1962). Thus, even were the statements in De la Rama referring to the statutory prerequisites of diversity jurisdiction alone not persuasive testament to the statutory origins of the rule, by hearing appeals from legislative, or Article I, courts, this Court implicitly has made clear its understanding
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