Search Result for "bigamy": 
Wordnet 3.0

NOUN (2)

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;


The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

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]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

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
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

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
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):

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.
The Devil's Dictionary (1881-1906):

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