A BOOK ON U.S. APPLICABLE LAW
Deacon San Nguyen
BIGAMY
I guess everybody knows that the equality of sexes in America is highly respected. However, Asian men sometimes think that women dominate over men especially when looking at the results of all divorces or separation cases: women mostly win, men mostly lose. Nevertheless, women still request to have more equal rights amendments.
There is a mockery about the equality of sexes: dog first, woman second, and man the least.
The equality of sexes is based on the Bill of Rights that never accepts bigamy in America. Anti-bigamy is a necessary ideology in this country, because, practically, one wife is just enough for a man to take care of. If more than one, a man will be unable to solve problems that will surely happen among them.
By law, bigamy is a crime. People can marry and divorce, then remarry as many times as they wish but they can not marry two or more wives at the same time. Anybody, even the President of the United States, can not violate this rule. If they do, they must be in jail. Oklahoma Law states that: a man who violates the law of bigamy will serve maximum 5 years in jail.
In this article, I only mention about the bigamy crime happened within Vietnamese-American community. Honestly, those cases happened due to special situations of Vietnamese people who had to leave their country for a new country. In this country, newcomers faced many seductive activities that pushed people into some unexpected and uncontrollable reactions that led to crimes.
David already settled in America. About 2 years later, he received a letter informing him that his mother-in- law and his sister-in-law had gone oversea and temporarily lived in Pulau Bidong, a refugee camp in Malaysia. They needed a sponsorship of a relative in USA. David asked a local church near his dwelling place to sponsor them. About few months later, both his in-laws arrived in USA. To save some money from the rent, his in-laws lived with him in the same house. David took care of his sister-in-law carefully. He drove her to a beauty college where she learned how to be a hair dresser. As people usually say, “A fire will break out if a lighter is put near a can of gas”, after 6 months course, Phan, his sister-in-law was pregnant. His mother- in-law sounded regretful but it was too late for her to change things. For two years, Phan gave births to two children. One day, being pressured by Phan, David had to take her to a local court to have a certificate of marriage signed. Not long after that, to make a balance in his family, David mother-in-law pushed him to sponsor his first wife and 4 children. That was he did. A year later, his first wife and 4 children arrived in USA and lived under the same roof with her younger sister, now was David’s wife, too.
Nevertheless, things did not happen nicely like David’s first wife thought. Phan was so rude with her husband and her older sister. Phan always pressured David to give her all income that he got. She wanted to control the whole family. Furthermore, Phan forbade David to show intimation with his first wife! Due to his leniency, David suffered so much that sometimes, he wanted to take his first wife and children out of his house but Phan threatened him that if he did that, she would report to the court that he violated the law of Bigamy! She also said that she would claim alimony and child support from him. At first, David tried to endure Phan’s rudeness, but gradually, he thought that he could not bear it any longer.
After seeking advice from some of his friend, one day, after a big fight with Phan, David borrowed some money from friends, took his own family out of the house and rent another house for his first wife and children living. Then, he requested the court to annul his second certificate of marriage with Phan.
My opinion is as follow:
- Phan was a wise woman but not knowledgeable enough. David did not process a divorce but an annulment because his first certificate of marriage with his first wife was still in effect. As Law states, if the first certificate of marriage was not void by a court judgment, the second certificate was automatically annulled.
- When the second marriage was annulled, nobody could request for the benefits like in other divorce case. The benefits would be judged by the court depending on the facts of the case.
- Because David’s first marriage was still in effect, the common law was not applied in this case. Phan could not claim that David coerced her into marriage because David was already Phan brother–in–law. Phan was unable to prove that David cheated her because of her age. She was almost 30 year old when thing happened. Thus, both would be criminals who violated the action of mutual agreement for bigamy.
- District Attorney would judge the case. He might or might not accuse David on bigamy based on the facts gathered from the case. David might be pardoned because of good reasons: He was unable to have communication with his first wife for 5 years due to the relationships between America and Vietnam that was cut off. Also, David was a permanent citizen, a newcomer, who did not have knowledge about the law of bigamy. Secondly, David, a single young man, who lived with his sister-in-law under the same roof, could not resist the temptation from the girl for long. Moreover, she was the person who coerced him in signing the marriage certificate. She threatened him that if he and his first wife moved out of the house, she would tell the court that David was a man who violated the bigamy law so that he would be in jail.
- In case David was accused as a bigamist, David would have the rights to have a trial with jurors in which, he would have chance to tell the Judge and Jurors about all happening since the start. As my experience, many cases similar to David’s case had brought good results to the defendants. For example, when jurors heard David told them that he had decided to go back with his original family but failed because the second wife forbade him doing so, the jurors might be shocked and would judge the case with some favors to him.
Supposedly, if David had sex with other girl, who was not his sister-in-law, without signing any marriage certificate and had no children with that girl, he would be in problem when he left his sex-partner to go back to his original wife who just arrived in America. The sex-partner would report him to the court and request David to support her financially as a legitimate spouse. David might advocate for himself that because he needed to have sex, he paid her monthly. In that case both David and his sex partner would be in jail because they bought or sold sex for money.
