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Bigamy   Listen
Bigamy

noun
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.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Bigamy" Quotes from Famous Books



... Maryland, shows some of the consequences of this "forbidding to marry." "A slave has never maintained an action against the violator of his bed. A slave is not admonished for incontinence, or punished for fornication or adultery; never prosecuted for bigamy." Again, God has written his commandment, that children should honor their parents. How, then, can He approve of a system, which pours contempt on the relation of parent and child? Which subjects them to be forcibly separated from each other, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... shut his eyes to the fact that for him this marriage would be bigamy; that their children would be illegitimate in the eyes of the law if legal scrutiny ever laid bare their father's history; nor that by all the accepted dictums of current morality he would be leading an innocent woman into sin. But current morality had ceased to have its ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... wives, and there was a procession all the way to the police-court, where, after several charges of assault had been preferred and proved against half a dozen mariners, Joseph was himself charged with bigamy, both wives giving evidence, and committed ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant

... with ill will, but simply to let you know how things stand. If we had married, I suppose I would be guilty of bigamy. At any rate, if he were disposed he could make a ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... the household, who cannot determine whether he is a lunatic or not; anyhow, he falls in love with the girl of the house. Unfortunately, rumour—a nasty, ill-natured thing—has it that Smith is a criminal. Evidence is collected, and a Grand Jury inquire into the charges, which include Bigamy, Murder, Polygamy, Burglary. It looks as if Smith is in for a very uncomfortable time, and the wedding bells are a ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke

... husbands are alive, but as one drinks and the other was married when he met you, they don't count." Miss Clairville was staring in front of her. "My dear girl—have you never heard of such a thing as bigamy? You're talking nonsense, and you must not allow Mr. Poussette to get you into trouble. ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... other respects were glad to see the mischief. The first to demand an explanation was the Ducal Court of Saxony, the Duke being so nearly related to Philip's first wife, and on the eve of a quarrel with Philip about a claim of inheritance. The Landgrave's whole position was in jeopardy; for bigamy, by the law of the Empire, was a serious offence. Luther heard now with indignation that the 'necessity' to which Philip had thought himself justified in yielding had been exaggerated. The latter, on the other ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... Underneath the linden boughs; Murder, bigamy, and theft; Travellers of goods bereft; Rapine, pillage, arson, spoil,— Every thing but honest toil, Are the deeds that best define Every Legend of ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte

... that no attainder should work corruption of blood in any case, and that the estates of persons committing suicide should descend to their natural heirs. It was likewise enacted that "every person convicted of bigamy, or of being accessory after the fact in any felony, or of receiving stolen goods, knowing them to have been stolen, or of any other offence not capital, for which, by the laws now in force, burning in the hand, cutting off ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... to have pacified Lily on that incident of the marriage: Lily believed him. One thing, however, disquieted Trampy: bigamy, all the same, meant doing time. Now, if some jealous person produced the proof of that marriage, contracted under the Western law ... suppose it were valid ... really valid? H'm! Was he going to lose ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... undeserved reproach? No, you wretch! not to save from ruin you and your fine sisters and high mother, and all your proud, shameful race! No, you devil! if there is law in the land, you shall be dragged to jail like a thief and exposed in court to answer for your bigamy; and all the world shall hear that you are a felon and she an honest girl who thought herself your wife when ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... 'tween a desk and the woodbox, and Jim had his wooden leg through a knot hole in the floor and couldn't get it out, and they've both gone to law about it. Jim says he's goin' to git out a writ of corpus cristy fer the Deacon, and the Deacon says he's goin' to prosecute Jim for bigamy and arson and have him read out ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart

... would," said I, jokingly, notwithstanding that I felt as melancholy and little inclined for raillery as their mother, whose words seemed to clinch what old Shuffler had said. "So I would, too, if there weren't a pair of you, and bigamy contrary to law. 'How happy could I be with either, were t'other dear charmer away.' But," I continued, turning to Lady Dasher, with an assumption of easy indifference which I found it hard to counterfeit under the searching glances ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... of whose numerous romances was one in which the hero sold his shadow to a demon over the dice-box; then married an unknown woman in a churchyard; afterwards wedded a river nymph; and, having committed bigamy, finally stabbed himself, to enable his first wife to marry his own father. He and his works are quite obsolete; and the star of his genius, with those of many others, has paled before the superior brilliancy of that literary comet, Mr. von Chronicle. According to von ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... victim being only his associate he could have left her at any time, and consequently there were absolutely no ameliorating circumstances in the case. From this point of view it would seem to have been (in Lord Moncreiff's eyes) less criminal to murder a wife than a mistress. In another, a bigamy case, after referring to the perfidy and cruelty to the women and their relations, Lord Cockburn reports him to have said: "All this is bad; but your true iniquity consists in this, that you degraded ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... landed anybody here but a fellow named Baker," he said. "I deported him from the Ellice Islands for sedition, bigamy, selling gin to the natives, suspected arson and receiving stolen goods. If he called himself a Deputy Commissioner he was a rank impostor, and had no more authority to annex this island ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... wild-fire. Everybody was astonished; he was at that time—aye, and had been for years—a churchwarden at the Parish Church, and I don't think there could have been more surprise if we'd heard that the Vicar had been arrested for bigamy. In a little town like this, news is all over the place in a few minutes. Of course, Chamberlayne would hear that news like everybody else. But it was remembered, and often remarked upon afterwards, that from the moment of Maitland's ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher

... were allowed to dispense with any "irregularity" except bigamy or wilful murder, and "to read forbidden books except Machiavel,"—took the title of Nganga Mfumo[FN35]—Lord Medicine-man. In the fulness of early zeal they built at S. Salvador the cathedral of Santa Cruz, a Jesuit College, a Capuchin convent, the residence of the father superior, maintained ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... that if Lucian Davlin attempted the life of this man, with the view of getting his money, and if he failed in some manner unknown,—don't you see that, holding over Percy's head the fear of the law, and the proofs of his having committed bigamy, he might thus silence him? Then, that the two disliking Philip Girard, and finding the opportunity to throw suspicion upon him by circumstantial ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch

... Original Sinner, An Garston Bigamy, The Out of Wedlock Her Husband's Friend Speaking of Ellen His Foster Sister Stranger than Fiction His Private Character Sugar Princess, A In Stella's Shadow That Gay Deceiver Love at Seventy Their Marriage Bond Love Gone Astray Thou Shalt Not Moulding a Maiden Thy Neighbor's Wife Naked Truth, ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... telling the truth? Would she stop at anything to avoid the scandal and disgrace of the charge of bigamy? Was there not something still that she was concealing? She took refuge in the ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve

... is certainly strange," I meditated. "Her 'devoted husband,' eh? How can that be? He has had no opportunity to marry her since his wife died; hence, unless he committed bigamy, this title of 'husband' is only assumed in anticipation; yet Mrs. Thayer is, undoubtedly, beautiful and winning, and she may have induced him to ease her conscience by a form of marriage, even while his legal wife still lived. I must look ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton

... fathoms of stone wall to steal a musket; and so on to the end of the catalogue. The judge being provided with a book in which all these matters are cunningly arranged, the thing is vastly convenient. For instance: a crime is proved,—say bigamy; turn to letter B—and there you have it. Bigamy:—forty days on the Broom Road, and twenty mats for the queen. Read the passage aloud, ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... Amelia Osborne, the wife of a brother-officer, when the Battle of Waterloo breaks out and Dobbin is slain. Captain Osborne, in the mistaken impression that Amelia has shared her betrayer's fate, marries the beautiful Becky Sharp and is tried for bigamy, but is acquitted, as Becky Sharp is proved to have been already married to an Indian Nabob of the name of Crawley. On the death of Crawley, Becky marries the Marquis of Steyne, becomes deeply religious and dies in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various

... for a fact. The question now is—How will Parflete endure such conduct? Her bigamy may have been innocent, or at least, an unavoidable accident. But the afternoon call—well, if he can swallow that, his meekness runs a risk of being called cowardice, and his magnanimity will bear an unpleasant resemblance ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... saying that Mary had at length consented to our wedding. It was at this time that I began to be afraid. What I had laughed at in my heart as the Scotch episode, became real. I remember, too, that at that time I was engaged in a bigamy trial, and I remember the terms which the judge used concerning the man who was found guilty. Yet here was I, who had acted as junior counsel for the prosecution of this man, contemplating taking ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... looked pretty much the same at the end of the three years as she had done at the beginning. Then she explained that she was going to be married again. Mr Ottery saw her on this, and pointed out to her that she would very likely be again committing bigamy by doing so. "You may call it what you like," she replied, "but I am going off to America with Bill the butcher's man, and we hope Mr Pontifex won't be too hard on us and stop the allowance." Ernest was little likely to do this, so the pair went in peace. I believe it was Bill ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... the marriage, therefore, in itself was null, and that Louise could, without incurring legal penalties for bigamy, marry again in France according to the French laws; but that under the circumstances it was probable that her next of kin would apply on her behalf to the proper court for the formal annulment of the marriage, ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... P. Cadova was dead. Not a bit of it. He was alive, and as well as a broken-hearted man could be. The Church, then, winked at a case of bigamy? Not so. In the States of the Church a woman may be married at the same time to a Jew and a Catholic, without being a bigamist, because in the States of the Church a Jew is not ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... form of marriage. It was then that she assumed the title, and caused Kingston House to be built for her residence; fifteen years later her real husband succeeded to the title of Earl of Bristol, and she was brought up to answer to the charge of bigamy, on which she was proved guilty, but with extenuating circumstances, and she seems to have got off scot-free. She afterwards went abroad, and died in Paris in 1788, aged sixty-eight, after a life of gaiety and dissipation. From the very beginning ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... at all! When you send lawyer's clerks all over Italy to try to prove my boy to be a bastard, and that is not quarrelling with me! When you accuse my wife of bigamy that is not quarrelling with me! When you conspire to make my house in the country too hot to hold me, that is not ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... felt a something very akin to relief and joy tingle through him. Agatha had married again—evidently a seafaring man. Next, came an ominous, creepy sensation. Agatha had committed bigamy. He remembered Enoch Arden, read aloud to the class by the teacher in the old schoolhouse, and began to think of himself as a hero. He would do the heroic. By George, he would. He would sneak away and get the first train for California. She ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London

... supposed by those who were most nearly concerned with Lady Eustace that this report had been unfounded and malicious, nevertheless, when the man's claims became so exorbitant, reference was again made to the charge of bigamy. If it could be proved that Mr. Emilius had a wife living in Bohemia, a cheaper mode of escape would be found for the persecuted lady than that which ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... lived retired, and never recovered the blow. As he was one of the only persons of the name, who could have married your mother, her relatives appear to have taken up the idea that he had been guilty of bigamy, and of course that Paul was illegitimate. Mr. Warrender, by his letters, appears even to have had an interview with this person, and, on mentioning his wife, was rudely repulsed from the house. It was a proud family, and Mildred being dead, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... Duchess of Kingston (1720-1788). The celebrated public trial of the Duchess of Kingston for bigamy took place in Westminster Hall, April, 1776. It was proved that she had privately married Augustus, second son of Lord Hervey, but the marriage was not owned. She lived publicly with the Duke of ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue

... was a wrong 'un," he said, cheerfully, "and would bring my mother's gray hairs to the grave with sorrow. I'm to 'ave bad companions and take to drink; I'm to steal money to gamble with, and after all that I'm to 'ave five years for bigamy. I told her I was disappointed I wasn't to be hung, and she said it would be a disappointment to a lot of other people too. Laugh! I thought I should ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs

... The Standard: "Double Bigamy;" "Speech of the Mayor." And later—eh? yes! I meandered Through some chapters of Vanity Fair. How it fuses the grave with the festive! Yet e'en there, there is nothing so fine - So playfully, subtly suggestive - As that joke ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley

... behind by the hair, and lifting a club to knock her brains out. A French novelist stimulates your jaded palate by introducing a duel fought with butchers' knives by the light of lanterns. One genius subsists by murder, as another does by bigamy and adultery. Scott would have recoiled from the blood as well as from the ordure, he would have allowed neither to defile his noble page. He knew that there was no pretence for bringing before a reader what ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... the vote so that women would have the power to help make the laws relating to marriage, divorce, adultery, breach of promise, rape, bigamy, infanticide, and so on. These laws, she reminded them, have not only been framed by men, but are administered by men. Judges, jurors, lawyers, all are men, and no woman's voice is heard in our ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... that she stabbed him, or it may be that she provided him with the motive to commit suicide—not that that seems likely. But you can't tell: she might have been able to threaten him with some exposure. Those people without any self-control are always doing the most senseless things—bigamy, for instance, is ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson

... "Bigamy is an ugly word," he continued, "but I meant to be a bigamist. This girl thought all was fair and legal, and never dreamt she was going to be entrapped into a feigned union with a defrauded wretch already bound ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... commit bigamy, denotes loss of manhood and failing mentality. To a woman, it predicts that she will suffer dishonor unless ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller



Words linked to "Bigamy" :   spousal relationship, statutory offense, bigamous, matrimony, regulatory offense, law, statutory offence, regulatory offence, marriage, bigamist, wedlock, jurisprudence, union



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