Bigamy is the condition of having two wives or two husbands at the same time.

The
second marriage to someone who is already legally married is void and may be annulled,
while there is no effect on the first marriage. A person who knowingly commits bigamy is
guilty of a crime, but it is seldom prosecuted unless it is part of a fraudulent scheme to get
another's property or some other felony. A marriage in another country is normally valid
in the US; so, if someone is married in another country, they cannot get married again in
the US or vice versa. Bigamy may be accidental, such as when the previous divorce was
not finalized due to a technicality, or the previous spouse who was presumed dead is
alive. In the United States if a husband or wife is absent and unheard of for seven (or in
some states five) years and not known to be alive, he or she is presumed dead, and
remarriage by the other spouse is not bigamous. It is not necessarily a defense to a charge
of bigamy that the offending party believed in good faith that he was divorced or that his
previous marriage was not lawful.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1878 that plurality of wives (polygamy), as