Opinion | Assam Leads The Way With Crackdown On Polygamy |
The Assam Assembly on November 27, 2025, passed the Assam Prohibition of Polygamy Bill, 2025, aimed at penalising those who enter into a second marriage without legally dissolving the first.
“We will reserve the Bill for the assent of President Droupadi Murmu. I do not think the Bill will be denied approval, as the President is a woman," Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said, pointing out rather needlessly that the Bill intends to protect women and compensate victims of polygamy. Every right-thinking person would throw his weight behind any anti-polygamy legislation.
Bigamy was first outlawed in the U.S. at the federal level by the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act in 1862, which criminalised the practice. Later, the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act of 1882 further strengthened the law and became the primary legal basis for prohibiting polygamy, which is now illegal in all states.
In the US, bigamy was banned at the instance, among others, of a feisty woman called Anna Eliza Young who happened to be the 27th (or was she the 19th, as there is no unanimity on this?) wife of Brigham Young whose Mormon church allowed a Mormon........