Research On The Crime Of Bigamy

The complicated inter-sexual relationship is a huge subject in human society.Bigamy, a twisted inter-sexual relationship, is more complex in reality. However, theexisting Chinese law about adjusting inter-sexual relationship doesn’t satisfy justicepractice. The hysteric of law, the fuzziness of bigamy, and the lack of special criterialead to the fact that few lawsuits about bigamy can be accepted and less can be foundguilty in justice practice.Besides something new happening in society recently such as having aconcubine or keeping a homosexual relationship with partner after a homosexualgetting married. Dose bigamy fit to these new things or not is a hanging question.Law and rules about bigamy are not specific enough to settle complex situation.On the basis of existing researches about bigamy made by Chinese scholars, withmethods of comparative analysis and inductive analysis, the author will make aanalysis in this thesis on Chinese bigamy such as its definitions and rules from variouslevels and angles. There are plenty of researches about bigamy in China. Afterscrupulous searching and reading, the author finds that most of existing researches putemphasis on the constitutive elements and criminal responsibility of bigamy. Fewresearches study the difficulties that bigamy faces in theory and practice. Therefore, onthe basis of reading and absorbing previous studies about bigamy, this thesis holdsmajor opinions as follows:Firstly, there are conflicts in Chinese civil law and criminal law on the issue of defacto marriage. Attitude to de facto marriage varies several times in civil law. Presentcivil law denies the legal effect of de facto marriage while de facto marriage ismeaningful in criminal law. Since bigamy aims to protect monogamy, then excludingfactual bigamy just because civil law denies de facto marriage will go against theoriginal of bigamy. Secondly, the author makes a comparative analysisbetween”having a concubine”and bigamy. According to this analysis and benefits that“having a concubine” encroaches on,the author draws the conclusion that “having aconcubine” cannot be treated as bigamy though it bring some negative effects on monogamy. Thirdly, gay marriage issue becomes a popular topic recently while fewpeople pay attention to the fact that some homosexual continue homosexualrelationship after getting married. Through homosexual superficial marriage bringslots of misfortunes to family, it cannot be convicted of a crime. Principle of legality isa basis principle of Chinese criminal law. Even homosexual superficial marriage causesome damages to society, it is found not guilty according to present criminal law.Therefore, the author believes it cannot be treated as bigamy. Through, studies andanalysis about these above mentioned questions, the author finds Chinese legalprovisions about bigamy ineffective when it comes to various bigamy actions andcomplex social problems. The author summaries defects of legal provisions aboutbigamy such as the lack of criterion and unreasonable distribution of content ofpunishment as well as puts forward some suggestions to perfect provisions of bigamy.The author hopes these suggestions can help to settle down some specific issue injustice practice.