Bigamy

5 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Bigamy \Big"a*my\, n. [OE. bigamie, fr. L. bigamus twice
     married; bis twice + Gr. ? marriage; prob. akin to Skt.
     j[=a]mis related, and L. gemini twins, the root meaning to
     bind, join: cf. F. bigamie. Cf. {Digamy}.] (Law)
     The offense of marrying one person when already legally
     married to another. --Wharton.


     [1913 Webster]
  
     Note: It is not strictly correct to call this offense bigamy:
           it more properly denominated polygamy, i. e., having a
           plurality of wives or husbands at once, and in several
           statutes in the United States the offense is classed
           under the head of polygamy.
           In the canon law bigamy was the marrying of two virgins
           successively, or one after the death of the other, or
           once marrying a widow. This disqualified a man for
           orders, and for holding ecclesiastical offices.
           Shakespeare uses the word in the latter sense.
           --Blackstone. --Bouvier.
           [1913 Webster]
  
                 Base declension and loathed bigamy. --Shak.
           [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  bigamy
       n 1: having two spouses at the same time
       2: the offense of marrying someone while you have a living
          spouse from whom no valid divorce has occurred

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  20 Moby Thesaurus words for "bigamy":
     beena marriage, common-law marriage, companionate marriage,
     concubinage, deuterogamy, left-handed marriage, levirate,
     leviration, love match, marriage of convenience, monandry,
     monogamy, monogyny, morganatic marriage, picture marriage,
     polyandry, polygamy, polygyny, trial marriage, trigamy
  
  

From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]:

  BIGAMY, crim. law, domestic relations. The willful contracting of a second 
  marriage when the contracting party knows that the first is still 
  subsisting; or it is the state of a man who has two wives, or of a woman who 
  has two husbands living at the same time. When the man has more than two 
  wives, or the woman more than two husbands living at the same time, then the 
  party is said to have committed polygamy, but the name of bigamy is more 
  frequently given to this offence in legal proceedings. 1 Russ. on Cr. 187. 
       2. In England this crime is punishable by the stat. 1 Jac. 1, c. 11, 
  which makes the offence felony but it exempts from punishment the party 
  whose husband or wife shall continue to remain absent for seven years before 
  the second marriage, without being heard from, and persons who shall have 
  been legally divorced. The statutory provisions in the U. S. against bigamy 
  or polygamy, are in general similar to, and copied from the statute of 1 
  Jac. 1, c. 11, excepting as to the punishment. The several exceptions to 
  this statute are also nearly the same in the American statutes, but the 
  punishment of the offence is different in many of the states. 2 Kent, Com. 
  69; vide Bac. Ab. h. t.; Com. Dig. Justices, Sec. 5; Merlin, Repert. mot 
  Bigamie; Code, lib. 9, tit. 9, 1. 18; and lib. 5, tit. 5, 1. 2. 
       3. According to the canonists, bigamy is three-fold, viz.: (vera, 
  interpretative, et similitudinaria,) real, interpretative and 
  similitudinary. The first consisted in marrying two wives successively, 
  (virgins they may be,) or in once marrying a widow; the second consisted, 
  not in a repeated marriage, but in marrying (v. g. meretricem vel ab alio 
  corruptam) a harlot; the third arose from two marriages indeed, but the one 
  metaphorical or spiritual, the other carnal. This last was confined to 
  persons initiated in sacred orders, or under the vow Of continence. 
  Deferriere's Tract, Juris Canon. tit. xxi. See also Bac. Abr. h. t.; 6 
  Decret, 1. 12. Also Marriage. 
  
  

From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]:

  BIGAMY, n.  A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will
  adjudge a punishment called trigamy.