Here is a revealing article form the West's Encyclopedia of American law.
This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.
The offense of having more than one wife or husband at the same time.
In every state the law allows a man or a woman to be married to only one person of the opposite sex at a time. The crime of having more than one current spouse is called polygamy. Under the law there is no difference between bigamy (having two spouses) and polygamy (having more than one spouse). States base their laws on the Model Penal Code § 230.1, which states that a person is guilty of the third-degree felony of polygamy if he or she "marries or cohabits with more than one spouse at a time in purported exercise of the right of plural marriage." The offense continues until all cohabitation with and claim of marriage to more than one spouse terminate. Polygamy laws do not apply to aliens who are temporarily visiting the United States, provided that polygamy is lawful in their country of origin.
The ban on polygamy originated in English common law. In England polygamy was repudiated because it deviated from Christian norms; marriage, it was believed, properly existed only between one man and one woman. In 1866, for example, in the seminal case of Hyde v. Hyde, 1 L.R.-P. & D., an English court remarked that "the law of [England was] … adapted to the Christian marriage, and it is wholly inapplicable to polygamy." During the nineteenth century, English and U.S. law did not recognize polygamous marriage in any form. Only in the late twentieth century has either nation given limited legal recognition to polygamous partners from other countries.
Anti-polygamy laws in the United States also sprang from religious conflict. In the mid-1800s, widespread public hostility arose toward the practice of polygamy by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known as Mormons. A small religious sect in the territory of Utah, the Mormons believed that their founder and prophet, Joseph Smith, had a divine revelation in 1843 that called for men to marry more than one woman; in 1852 the church announced that the practice was religiously superior to monogamy. This position angered critics throughout the country, ranging from religious leaders to novelists, editorialists, and particularly politicians. In 1856 the Republican party's first national platform denounced polygamy and slavery as "those twin relics of barbarism."
These attitudes formed the basis for a full-scale legal assault on polygamy in general and on the Mormons' practice in particular. In Washington, D.C., lawmakers passed federal anti-polygamy laws that severely punished polygamists, denied them the right to vote, and ultimately repealed the legal incorporation of the Mormon Church and began proceedings to seize its property. U.S. marshals arrested hundreds of Mormons. As the church battled these measures, several cases reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The most famous case is Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 8 Otto 145, 25 L. Ed. 244 (1878), in which the Court upheld the conviction of a Mormon leader by rejecting the church's claim to protection under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In 1890 the Court upheld the 1887 federal statute repealing the church's incorporation (24 Stat. 635, ch. 397) in Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States, 136 U.S. 1, 10 S. Ct. 792, 34 L. Ed. 478 (1890), modified, 140 U.S. 665, 11 S. Ct. 884, 35 L. Ed. 592 (1891). Having no further legal recourse, the Mormon Church abandoned the practice of polygamy.
This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.
The offense of having more than one wife or husband at the same time.
In every state the law allows a man or a woman to be married to only one person of the opposite sex at a time. The crime of having more than one current spouse is called polygamy. Under the law there is no difference between bigamy (having two spouses) and polygamy (having more than one spouse). States base their laws on the Model Penal Code § 230.1, which states that a person is guilty of the third-degree felony of polygamy if he or she "marries or cohabits with more than one spouse at a time in purported exercise of the right of plural marriage." The offense continues until all cohabitation with and claim of marriage to more than one spouse terminate. Polygamy laws do not apply to aliens who are temporarily visiting the United States, provided that polygamy is lawful in their country of origin.
The ban on polygamy originated in English common law. In England polygamy was repudiated because it deviated from Christian norms; marriage, it was believed, properly existed only between one man and one woman. In 1866, for example, in the seminal case of Hyde v. Hyde, 1 L.R.-P. & D., an English court remarked that "the law of [England was] … adapted to the Christian marriage, and it is wholly inapplicable to polygamy." During the nineteenth century, English and U.S. law did not recognize polygamous marriage in any form. Only in the late twentieth century has either nation given limited legal recognition to polygamous partners from other countries.
Anti-polygamy laws in the United States also sprang from religious conflict. In the mid-1800s, widespread public hostility arose toward the practice of polygamy by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known as Mormons. A small religious sect in the territory of Utah, the Mormons believed that their founder and prophet, Joseph Smith, had a divine revelation in 1843 that called for men to marry more than one woman; in 1852 the church announced that the practice was religiously superior to monogamy. This position angered critics throughout the country, ranging from religious leaders to novelists, editorialists, and particularly politicians. In 1856 the Republican party's first national platform denounced polygamy and slavery as "those twin relics of barbarism."
These attitudes formed the basis for a full-scale legal assault on polygamy in general and on the Mormons' practice in particular. In Washington, D.C., lawmakers passed federal anti-polygamy laws that severely punished polygamists, denied them the right to vote, and ultimately repealed the legal incorporation of the Mormon Church and began proceedings to seize its property. U.S. marshals arrested hundreds of Mormons. As the church battled these measures, several cases reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The most famous case is Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 8 Otto 145, 25 L. Ed. 244 (1878), in which the Court upheld the conviction of a Mormon leader by rejecting the church's claim to protection under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In 1890 the Court upheld the 1887 federal statute repealing the church's incorporation (24 Stat. 635, ch. 397) in Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States, 136 U.S. 1, 10 S. Ct. 792, 34 L. Ed. 478 (1890), modified, 140 U.S. 665, 11 S. Ct. 884, 35 L. Ed. 592 (1891). Having no further legal recourse, the Mormon Church abandoned the practice of polygamy.
