Bigamy is a legal term describing being married to more than one person at the same time. A bigamist could be married to any number of people and legally charged with counts for each marriage after the first one. For example, if a man is married to 10 spouses, he could be charged with nine counts of bigamy.
What is Bigamy?
Though bigamy is a form of polygamy, it is a more specific term, not encompassing the act of several people engaging in a single romantic relationship. Bigamy, by contrast, involves one person marrying multiple people, often in secret.
The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia argues that this definition is an irregular interpretation of the original definition, which defines bigamy as having multiple spouses in consecutive order, perhaps after the first has been divorced or died.New Advent: Bigamy (in Canon Law)
References
Fast Facts
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Fact:
At least one of the marriages must be legal to be considered bigamy
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Fact:
A crime in the United States and most other western countries
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Barbara Ann Moore
First woman charged with bigamy in Kentucky
