In the early 1900s, the criminal justice system had little sympathy for alleged bigamists. The system treated bigamists with harshness. The case of Francis Fritz provides a good example. Francis lived with his first wife for twenty-three years, with whom he had six children. He then deserted her and remarried.
When charged with bigamy, he claimed, unsuccessfully, that since "no legal ceremony had tied him to the first wife, he did not see what could prevent him from contracting a legal marriage. After the jury convicted him, however, Judge Newburger remarked that it was only the third time in his judicial career when he felt regret at not having the power to inflict a more severe punishment than the law prescribed: "'You are about the most contemptible specimen I have ever had to sentence,' he remarked to the prisoner, and the man cowered under the words as if in fear of a blow." The Judge then sentenced Fritz to five years in state prison.
Female bigamists seemed to be treated with equal harshness by the judicial system. For example, Florence Ferrest was arrested for bigamy after admitting to having several husbands in
The New York Times noted that Mrs. Florence wept after saying the following: "Just think . . . here I am under $1,000 bail for doing nothing more than trying to establish a home for myself. I told Ferrest I was divorced from Chabbenou, and thought the other marriages not important enough to count. And to think I shall have to stay in jail just for trying to make myself happy."
In the early 1900s, the public perceived bigamy as a moral crime against not just the spouse of the accused, but against society itself. In the eyes of the public, bigamists undermined social structure by breaking the sacred vow of marriage that tied the family and the greater community together. Judges and juries were outraged by instances of bigamy, at times reacting as though it was their spouse that had been unfaithful to them.
Yellow Justice: Media Portrayal of Criminal Trials in the Progressive Era, Shannon Petersen
Bigamy In Civil Jurisprudence
The statute books of various states of the Union contain laws modelled upon, and with provisions more or less similar to, those of the English law of 1604, and defining bigamy, or in the statutes of some States, polygamy, as a crime. Formerly by the Virginia law (United States reports, XCVIII, 165) and by the law of North Carolina (Kent, Commentaries, Part IV, 79 note d), bigamy was punished by death. Now its punishment in Virginia is imprisonment of not more than ten nor less than two years (Code § 3781), and in the North Carolina of not more than ten years nor less than four months (Revisal, § 3361).
In the State of New York the punishment is not more than five years' imprisonment, and the period of absence excusing second marriage is fixed at five years, the former husband or wife having been absent from the one remarrying "without being known by him or her within that time to be living and believed by him or her to be dead" (Birdseye, Revised Statutes, 306).
Divorce (unless for fault of the party remarrying), due permission of court, or annulment of the previous marriage, or sentence to life imprisonment of the former husband or wife also excuses the remarriage. Absence, therefore, not dissolving a previous marriage, on proof that a husband or wife who had been supposed to be dead is in fact living, the second marriage may be adjudged to be a nullity. The law will not sanction bigamy by recognizing the two marriages to be simultaneously valid.
According to the law of New York, the earlier marriage ceases to be binding until one of the three parties to the two marriages procures a judgment pronouncing the second marriage void (New York Court of Appeals Reports, CXIV, 120; Birdseye, op. cit., 1042; cf. Bishop, New Commentaries).