Polygamy and Bigamy Laws in The US
Bigamy is the act or condition of a person marrying another person while still being lawfully married to a second person and it is illegal in the United States. The crime is punishable either by a fine, imprisonment, or both, according to the law of the individual state and the circumstances of the offense.
According to the Model Penal Code (section 230.1) bigamy is a misdemeanor, but having more than one spouse at the same time is a felony if it is done "in purported exercise of a plural marriage..." According to Joel Feinberg in Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, "Righteously flaunting one's illicit relationships, according to the Code, is apparently a morally aggravating circumstance, more punishable than its clandestine and deceptive counterpart."
The Model Penal Code allows people to use an honest belief that they are only married to one person as a defense against a charge of bigamy. However, many US courts (e.g., Turner v. S., 212 Miss. 590, 55 So.2d 228) treat bigamy as a strict liability crime: in some jurisdictions a person can be convicted of a felony even if reasonably certain there was only one legal spouse. For example, if a person has the mistaken belief that their previous spouse is dead or that their divorce is final, they can still be convicted of bigamy if they marry a new person.
Read more about this topic: Polygamy In North America
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