Forms: 3–7 bigamie, 4 bygamye, 6 bygamy, 6– bigamy. [a. F. bigamie, f. bigame: see BIGAM(E and -Y.]
1. Marriage with a second wife or husband during the lifetime of the first; the crime of having two wives or husbands at once.
c. 1250. Gen. & Ex., 449. Bigamie is unkinde ðing, On engleis tale, twie-wifing.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Wife’s Prol., 54. Of shrewed Lamech and his bigamie.
1460. Capgrave, Chron. (1858), 5. Lamech, that broute in first bigamie.
1660. Stanley, Hist. Philos. (1701), 97/2. The occasion, whereupon the Athenians … allowed bigamy.
c. 1725. Pope, Mart. Scribl., xiii. A suit against Martin for Bigamy.
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 4 March, 3/2. Bigamy cases seldom have any legal interest for lawyers at the present day.
b. (Used fig. or loosely.)
1635. J. Taylor (Water P.), Old Parr, D j. Each man had many wives, which Bigamie, Was such increase to their Posterity.
a. 1658. Cleveland, Gen. Poems (1677), 70. But is this Bigamy of Titles due? Are you Sir Thomas and Sir Martin too?
2. Eccl. Law. Re-marriage after the death of a first wife (or husband); marriage of, or with, a widow (or widower). Obs. exc. Hist.
[1345. Act [in Rastell 1557] 18 Edw. III., ii. De trier par enquestes ou en auter maner la bygamie.]
1528. More, Comf. agst. Trib., III. Wks. 229/1. The forbidding of bigamy by ye wedding of one wife after another.
1543. Grafton, Contn. Harding, 504. It is … a greate blemishe to the sacred maiestie of a prince … to bee defiled wt bigamy in his first mariage.
1594. Shaks., Rich. III., III. vii. 189. Seduc’d … To base declension, and loath’d Bigamie.
1752. Fielding, Amelia, VI. vii. I shall not enter into the question concerning the legality of bigamy. Our laws certainly allow it.
1865. Nichols, Britton, II. 25, note. Bigamy (in the ancient and proper sense of the word) involved the loss of the benefit of clergy.
