Historical background

In the past, bigamy was dealt by the priestly courts. Following the Reformation, Parliament in England enacted laws that punished the offense, and similar measures were taken elsewhere. Such principles vary in nature and material.

In the seventeenth century, when the persecution of bigamy was about twelve or so a year in England, men and women were occasionally sentenced to be hanged for this crime.The history of the laws based on Bigamy and the existence of Bigamy goes back to the Vedic times. Monogamy has been legal ever since, but it has been going on with the exception that is polygamy, which is where a married man has more than two living wives.

The Manusmriti, one of the main sources of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, contains documents that explicitly state that if the wife was barren, ill, or cruel enough to be replaced, the second marriage was legal. However, the first, a married woman could be considered alone as the wife, not the last woman. In a more general sense, the first wife was stronger than the other and her eldest son, more than the other sons of the husband. Some women were considered superior to the concubines. But, in time, the courts during the British rule ruled that a Hindu man could marry another woman during his first marriage without the consent of his wife or any other cause.