WHAT A STORY!

Apr 23, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – About 10 years ago, the Trinidad Express reported a most amazing story. Not only was the story an eyeful but the comments that accompanied the story typified West Indian humour and satire.
The newspaper reported that a man was scheduled to appear in front of a court charged with bigamy. This is not a regular occurrence and so when it does, it becomes the talk of the town.
So what is bigamy? The common understanding is that someone commits bigamy when he marries someone else while being lawfully married to another person.
A son once asked his father, “Dad does bigamy mean that a man has one wife too many?”
The father replied, “Not necessarily, son. A man can have one wife too many and still not be a bigamist.”
A person commits the criminal offence of bigamy if that person who was previously married ties the knot again with another person without the first person being dead or presumed dead or without a divorce. A marriage ends when one party dies or when the marriage is nullified through the granting of an absolute divorce.
In charging someone with bigamy, the burden is on the prosecution to show not only that the person was married twice but that he or she knew that the individual to whom they were first married was still alive.
What was most interesting about the case reported in the Trinidad Express was that the person who was due to appear in front of a magistrate court was not just charged for having two wives but for having 10 wives. Yes, 10 wives!
The comments in the blog beneath this story were a riot. One blogger observed that some men have difficulties to find one woman to marry, but this particular one found 10.
One man requested to know what the accused bigamist was bathing with, since the blogger, wanted to marry his neighbour and a co-worker but does not know how to ask his wife’s permission.
Another called on his fellow bloggers to leave the accused alone, since if a person has 10 partners then nobody would get “horn”. Yet another observed that the difference between this guy and another person with children with several women was that one broke the law while the other was dealing with broken water bags. Then there was someone who explained that perhaps the accused simply liked wedding cake.
All of these comments ignored the fact that the man had not yet been found guilty. As such, he should have been presumed innocent until proven guilty.
In a case many years ago, an accused bigamist was found not guilty by the courts. In discharging him, the judge said, “You have been found not guilty of bigamy. So you can now feel free to go home.”
The man looked at the judge with a puzzled look and asked, “Which home shall I go to, Your Honour?”
In a case in India, a Delhi court ruled that persons actively participating in key ceremonies of a person’s unlawful wedding for a second time are guilty of aiding and abetting bigamy.
The court held that while participation in the wedding ceremonies did not ipso facto constitute abetment to bigamy since abetment connotes active suggestion or support in the commission of a crime. However, those who were closely associated with the essential ceremonies involved in an unlawful wedding ceremony cannot escape sanction since they would have actively supported the bigamy.
In another case, a man was sentenced to a mere three months’ probation for bigamy. Apparently, the man during his first marriage left his matrimonial home many times.
He had last left home four years ago and his first wife said that the last time she heard from him was in May this year when he called to inform her that he was married to another woman.
Apparently he must have presumed that once you are separated from your spouse for an extended period this amounts to a divorce. Well, not under the law. The court still has to grant a divorce before someone can remarry.
This one got off lightly. Many others are not so lucky. But as someone once joked, the penalty for being a bigamist is having two mothers-in-laws, punishment enough. Imagine having 10!
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)