Section I. Definition

It seems appropriate to discuss bigamy in close association with the offences contained in the preceding chapter, for although bigamy was originally an ecclesiastical offence based upon the broad ground of its ‘involving an outrage upon public decency by the profanation of a solemn ceremony’ and was first made a felony by an Act of 1603 which seems to have similarly regarded it, yet at the present day the substantial justification for retaining it as a serious crime is that in many cases it may cause great suffering to an innocent party to the bigamous marriage. It is now governed by the Offences against the Person Act, 1861, s. 57. The word ‘bigamy’ properly means being married twice but in the crime as now existing, it is employed as synonymous with polygamy, or having a plurality of wives at one time.

The offence is committed when a person

1. (a) being married

2. (b) goes through a legally recognized ceremony of marriage with another person

3. (c) whilst the original wife or husband is still living;

4. (d) unless

1. (i) the second marriage is contracted elsewhere than in England and Ireland by any other than a subject of the Crown; or

2. (ii) the first marriage has been legally dissolved by divorce; or

3. (iii) the first marriage has been declared void by a competent court; or

4. (iv) the original husband or wife has been continually absent, for the space of seven years then last past, from the person marrying a second time and shall not have been known by such person to be living within that time.

(a) The first marriage

171. To sustain an indictment for bigamy the first marriage must have been valid according to the law of the domicile of the parties, so far as concerns their personal capacity to marry; and according to the law of the place of celebration, so far as concerns the ceremonial form. The first marriage must be proved to the satisfaction of the jury; a presumption is not enough.