2 Bigamy (Dui Bihe)

Definition: marrying again while the first spouse is alive and the first marriage subsists — the monogamy rule's breach (Nepal's statutory monogamy: the 2020 Ain's abolition of polygamy's old regimes, the Code's monogamous marriage code). Elements:1. A valid prior marriage (the first marriage must subsist — the void-ab-initio first marriage's paradox: the "bigamist" whose first marriage never existed);2. A second marriage ceremony/registration while the first subsists;3. The second marriage's own form (the ceremony or registration constituting "marriage" for the offence — the unregistered-ritual marriage's sufficiency for criminality, the courts recognizing the socially-performed marriage though unregistered);4. Knowledge of the first marriage's subsistence (the mistake-of-fact defence: the spouse reasonably believed dead/divorced).The statutory exceptions (the Code's scheme, by principle): the first marriage's dissolution (divorce/death); the first spouse's whereabouts unknown for the statutory period (the deserted spouse's statutory release — the "not heard of for the defined years" exception); the first marriage's judicial nullity.The gendered history (the analysis that earns marks): the Ain-era polygamy's asymmetry (the husband's conditional second marriage permitted under the old law's strictures; the wife's never) abolished in the reform era — the Code's equal monogamy; the bigamy prosecution's sociology (the second-family cases, the deserted-first-wife complaints, the property-and- maintenance drivers behind the charges).The syllabus prescribes a case for this section; its citation and holding are withheld until verified.