A BOOK ON U.S. APPLICABLE LAW
Deacon San Nguyen
POLYGAMY AND POLYANDRY
Nowadays, it is very rare to see a country in which polygamy is still in effect. Polygamy is only respected in small and underdeveloped countries. On the other hand, in the most civilized and developed countries, such as America, polygamy is strictly prohibited. Nevertheless, within Vietnamese-American communities, there are some polygamy and polyandry cases happened due to the effects of the event of the Black April 1975.
At that time, Vietnamese people hastily left their country for a freedom country. To this point, families broke down into several parts. Husbands abandoned wives. Wives ran with friends. Children left their parents. Siblings departed from each other. All people ran in panic without having even a tiny bit information about their destination. Hundred thousands of people went oversea in small boats, wandering days or months on immense sea, hoping to be saved by some foreigners. Nevertheless, their fates were not as nice as they expected. Only a small number of boat people reached to the shores of Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, or Philippine while a great number drown in the sea, or were raped by brutal fishermen of their once neighbor countries: Thailand and Malaysia. Many boat people’s heads were chopped off and threw into the sea. Thousands of horrible stories were told about boat people.
However, in this chapter, we only discuss about the side-effects of the broken families that were lucky to be saved by Americans and now lived in America, the most generous country with open arms that helped Vietnamese to resettle here. Lack of knowledge about the social life in this country, many sad stories happened within Vietnamese community.
- Bob went oversea by boat by himself. He left his wife and two children at home because he did not have enough money to pay the boat owner for his whole family to go with him. During 6 years living alone in America, Bob met several widows as well as single ladies whose husbands were still in Vietnam. They all liked him. One day, he took one of those ladies, a lady who was 10 years younger than him, to a court to have a wedding certificate done. After few years, Bob had two daughters with his new wife. Then, one day, Bob convinced his second wife to help him sponsor his first wife to America. In order to do that, he needed to file for a divorce with his second wife who agreed with his plan. Bob then was very happy to welcome his first wife and his two children to America. Strangely enough, his second wife felt alright with his first wife and her children to live in the same house.
There, Bob had two wives and four children living together. Due to Bob’s nice characteristics, all of them loved each other very much. When it was necessary to go to supermarket for buying food, both wives happily went together like sisters. At dinners, they ate at the same table and shared some funny stories with each other. A year went by, the first wife gave birth to a son. Then the second wife also gave birth to another girl only a month later. Totally, Bob had six children from two wives. When seeing that happy family, people wondered how Bob could keep his family in happiness like that. Nobody felt jealous with anybody.
Specifically, after a time, the first wife agreed to stay home to take care of all 6 children so that the second wife could work at a company to earn more money for the whole family.
Indeed, it was rare to see such family in which a husband lived with two wives at the same time without any problem at all. Mostly, if a man wanted to have an affair with another lady, he had to hide everything from his original wife.
Especially in America where the Law forbade polygamy, nobody could witness such thing. Bob case was just a unique one. There was none like this anywhere in U.S.A. as well as in Vietnam. - Polyandry: After the fall of Saigon in 1975, Mr. Can was put in concentration camps for 8 years. During the time he was in jail, his wife at home sent his two children going oversea with her sister. Unfortunately, they all died at sea. A year after being released, Can submitted an application to leave Vietnam for U.S.A. under H.O. program. Arriving in this country, Can was so weak that no any company took him. Therefore, he stayed home doing some errands for his wife worked at a company. A year later, Mrs. Can had a boyfriend who worked at the same workplace with her. The boyfriend was much younger than Mrs. Can. Knowing that his wife had an affair with a young man, Can could not say anything. He accepted the fate without complaint. Realizing that her husband was so nice, Mrs. Can convinced him to have her boyfriend came home and lived with them.
Having no choice, Can agreed to move himself to the garage that was converted into a bedroom with all facilities such as bathroom and restroom and let Mrs. Can and her boyfriend lived in the 3 bedroom-house! Six months after her boyfriend moved in the house, Mrs. Can gave birth to a nice boy.
People usually saw Can held the boy walking on the streets nearby. However, they never saw both husbands walking together, only one husband at a time with the wife. One of Mr. Can’s close friends told us that Can could sing very well. The song he liked to sing was “I made mistake when sponsoring you to this country.” With his good voice, Can made the listeners very emotional.
We all know that State Laws are different with each other somehow. As the Family Law of Oklahoma, number 21, article 881, stated: Any married person, while still lives with spouse, marries with another will be charged as a violation of the restriction of bigamy. Nevertheless, in article 882, there are exemptions as follow:
- Any married person has no knowledge whereabouts his or her spouse for five years continuously.
- Any married person lives far away from his or her spouse for five years continuously and one of the two does not live in America.
- Any married person had received the certificate of marriage annulment from the Court or by some reason, the marriage has no valid.
- Any married person has his or her spouse received a life sentence.
Additionally, article 883, stated that whoever committed polygamy will be charged as a criminal, and will be detained in prison not over five years.
Article 884 stated: Whoever agrees to marry to a married person will be charged as a criminal, too, and will be detained in state prison not over five years or, detained in County jail not over one year, or fined not over $500.00, or both doing time and fine.
Notwithstanding, the persons in the two above stories still lived happily together for nearly 20 years without any problem. They loved each other like they did with their first loves. Nobody reported them to the Law, because they did not bother anyone. Now they were old enough not to think of any problem related to the Law except when Bob in the first story, someday, somehow, suddenly felt bored with his lonely life and wished to avenge somebody. At that time, a war might break out terribly among them.
