The strange history of bigamy in England: fake tears, secret weddings and double lives

The strange history of bigamy in England: fake tears, secret weddings and double lives

Polygamy by Edward Williams the Elder (1787). The MetThe historical source material on bigamy depicts an awful lot of weeping. Sometimes the tears are behind the scenes – the reaction of a deserted first wife or deceived second wife to the revelation of her husband’s crime. On occasion they are tears of contrition, as the bigamist begs for forgiveness or at least not to be prosecuted. Although one unmoved 18th-century wife suspected her bigamist…