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Do bigamy laws prevent justice?

Scarecrow

Scarecrow

Member
In this article it shows where a marriage was abandoned, and the man remarried. After his death his "legal" wife and his wife at his death ended up in court over his pension. I think it should have been divided between them, but the judge ruled that the second marriage was void because the bigamy laws made the first marriage valid since there was no divorce, and therefore the second marriage was invalid. Is this a good example of where the bigamy laws prevented a man from taking care of one of his wives?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40138757/ns/us_news-life/
 
When we Christian polygynists maritally covenant without the blessing of society's laws, we are on our own and have to trust the laws of the Kingdom of God. One of the main reasons one might not marry polygynously is that the man might not be able to get medical insurance for his covenanted wife, while his legal wife is completely covered. The only alternatives as I see it is that the covenanted wife tries to make it work on pay as able medical clinics, or she gets insurance through her own employment, or he is rich enough to get private insurance for her.

In the case where the informal wife has her own income, dwelling and insurance, and the polygyny is secret, as long as she doesn't have to lie to make it work, then this is a valid alternative. In this case the man does not live with her and might spend only a night or two with her each week, presenting himself to onlookers as if he were a boyfriend, not a husband.
There should be no deliberate deception in Christian polygyny.
 
I see your point, but the good side I saw to this was that the judge didn't 'force' a double marriage, or bigamy. He still ruled it as only one legal marriage.
 
According to "the law" he ruled correctly...my point was that the woman who had become his second wife was kicked to the curb by the judge...I thought it was a rather sad story...the pension should have been split between his wives...
 
it mostly shows the stupidity of dying w/out a will ;)
 
steve said:
it mostly shows the stupidity of dying w/out a will ;)
Click to expand...

And not anticipating that his second wife will not get anything because he was still legally married!

I feel sorry for the second wife though, did she even KNOW her husband wasn't legally divorced?

When you get married don't you have to show any legal documents to prove your previous marriage has been annulled in some way?

B
 
I saw this and it made me very sad. But, I think more than anything it points to how inattentive we are to the stuff that makes up our life. Why would anyone not take care of his family? To be undivorced for all those years while creating another family is just folly. To not plan for the future, especially when you have all those health problems, is just playing with fire. I sincerely hope that the legal wife doesn't sue the wife who stood by him through thick and thin for the $193,000. That would just be selfish and cruel. This man didn't think about his family and that is the hardest thing. The wife didn't know he was married before and therefore had no reason to think anything was amiss. At least in our world, we know there are other wives and we can encourage our mates to take care of business.

Personally, I saw this article as a tragedy that showed how unaware people are and how greedy others are. If I had been the first wife (knowing that I had had no imput into his life in years) I couldn't live with my conscience of taking something that was deserved by the other woman. I don't care how poor I was or how much money it was or even how angry I was, nothing could make me take money that someone else deserved.

SweetLissa
 
Well said, Liss. :)
 
Sweet Lissa, you are a refreshing and pleasant blessing. The world needs more of you.
 
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