I heard about a bigamy case in Fairfax, Virginia today. This man had married seven women, with some of these overlapping, and was exposed when a woman who would be his eighth wife saw him on Dr. Phil and called police. Last year, charges were pressed against him for marrying his seventh wife while married to his sixth wife. However, the authorities dropped the charges when it was decided that the marriage to number 6 was invalid because at that time he was still married to number 5.
This must have been some character, all right. I suspect his motive was money; in each case, he seemed to have cleaned out his wife's bank accounts. But this brings up an interesting question. When someone starts committing bigamy like this over and over again, which of the marriages are valid and which are not? For example, in the case above, maybe the authorities could have convicted him because he was validly married to his sixth wife, because his marriage to his fifth wife was invalid because at the time of that marriage, he was married to his fourth wife. I don't know if this was really the case; I suspect it was not. One can continue with this for some time; for example, maybe the marriage to number 7 was invalid after all because the marriage to number 4 was invalid since he was married to number 3 at the time. Or maybe it was valid, because marriage 3 could have been void because he was married to number 2 at the time. Or maybe it is invalid because when marrying number 2, he could have been married to number 1. But that ends it. Any marriage that you make with your first spouse is valid; or at least it can't be invalid because of bigamy. So the lout's marriage to his seventh wife was invalid. But that's only if all this overlapping occurred.
Suppose then that a man does the following:
Marries Annette;
Marries Betty while still married to Annette;
Divorces Annette;
Marries Cindy while still married to Betty;
Marries Dorothy while still married to Cindy;
Divorces Cindy;
Marries Ethel while still married to his other wives;
Divorces Betty;
Divorces Ethel.
Which of these marriages were valid? I am assuming that statements saying he divorced someone are to be striken from this account if the marriage that is being divorced is invalid. Don't scroll any farther if you want to find out.
Answer: His marriage to Annette was valid. His marriage to Betty was not valid. His marriage to Cindy was valid, since his marriage to Betty was not valid, and he had divorced Annette. His marriage to Dorothy was not valid. His marriage to Ethel was valid, since he divorced Annette and Cindy and since his marriages to Betty and Dorothy were not valid. After divorcing Ethel, he is all by himself with no wives.
In general, how do you determine who a bigamist is legally married to when you are given his list of marriages and divorces?
