bigamy
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: ecclesiastical
law
lifestyle
religion
Etymology: From Middle English bigamie (“having two spouses simultaneously, bigamy; second marriage; marrying a widow or widower”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman bigamie and Middle French bigamie (“having two spouses simultaneously; second marriage; marrying a widow or widower”) (modern French bigamie (“bigamy”)), and its etymon Late Latin bigamia (“having two spouses simultaneously; second marriage”), from Late Latin, Latin bigamus (“bigamous”) + -ia (variant of -ius (suffix forming adjectives from nouns)). Bigamus is derived from bis (“twice, two times”) + Ancient Greek γάμος (gámos, “marriage; matrimony”) (from Proto-Indo-European *ǵem- (“to marry”)). The English word is analysable as bi- + -gamy.
Base: bi
Inflected forms:
form: bigamies
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: bigamie
pos: noun
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: The state of having two (legal or illegal) spouses simultaneously.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: But now we may find in S. Margarets life, who it is that is Chriſtes wife: whereby we are ſo much wiſer than we were before. But looke in the life of S. Katharine, in the golden legend, and you ſhall find that he was alſo married to S. Katharine, and that our ladie made the marriage, &c. An excellent authoritie for bigamie.
A beauty-waining and diſtreſſed widow [Elizabeth Woodville], / Euen in the afternoone of her beſt daies / Made priſe and purchaſe of his [Edward IV's] luſtfull eye, / Seduct the pitch and height of al his thoughts, / To baſe declenſion and loathd bigamie, / By her in his vnlawfull bed he got.
Not to take a Wife to her Siſter] Not to take one Wife to another, or not to have at once two Wives. This ſentence condemneth Bigamie, and Polygamie, having two or more Wives together, Lev[iticus] 18. 18. Neither ſhalt thou take a Wife to her Siſter to vex her.
It is the Complaint of many that ſecular Judges and others make an Objection of Bigamy againſt Clerks when they are taken and impriſon'd for their Crimes, and demand to be ſent to the Eccleſiaſtical Court; [...] Farther he who marries a Widow, or two Women oftentimes does not contract Bigamy according to them, and they do not eſteem ſome to be Bigamiſts, who really are ſo.
This is a peculiar privilege of the clergy, that sentence of death can never be passed upon them for any number of manslaughters, bigamies, simple larcenies, or other clergyable offences; [...]
The missionaries have prepared a sort of penal tariff to facilitate judicial proceedings. [...] 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, and sentence is pronounced.
The providers of our sensational fiction [...] have gone on describing murders, bigamies, and forgeries, forgeries, bigamies, and murders, until at length these crimes have become about the most commonplace acts that a hero or heroine can perform.
Anita laughed and hugged him and told him he was the best kid in the world, if he was fifteen years older she'd commit bigamy and marry him. Sully-John blushed until he was purple.
One of nineteenth-century Britain's most important pieces of marriage law legislation, the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857, immediately preceded the explosion of bigamy novels in the early 1860s. [...] Bigamy plots thus suggest a literary-historical asymmetry: just when middle-class Victorians no longer needed to commit bigamy, or, for that matter, murder, to get rid of an unwanted first spouse, bigamy was transformed from a real crime into a popular narrative device.
gloss: A second marriage after the death of a spouse.
pos: noun
tags: countable
historical
uncountable
examples: Bigamie was a counterplea (deuiſed at yͤ Councell of Lyons, vpon mislike of ſecond marriage) to be obiected, when the priſoner demaundeth the benefite of the Clergie, to wit, his Book, as namely to ſay, that he which demaundeth the priuiledge of the Clergie, was married to ſuch a woman at ſuch a place, within ſuch a Dioceſſe, and that ſhee is dead, and that hee hath married another woman within the ſame Dioceſſe, or within ſome other Dioceſſe, and ſo is Bigamus.
Related words: bigama
bigame
bigamic
bigamize
bigamized
bigamous
bigamus
polyamory
plural marriage
Derived words: bigamist
Translations: