Offences against the public Morality, Health, and Police.

Sec 121. Bigamy consists in the having of two wives or two husbands at one and the same time, knowing that the former husband or wife is still alive. If any person or persons within this state, being married, or who shall hereafter marry, do at any time marry any person or persons, the former husband or wife being alive; the person so offending shall, on conviction thereof, be punished by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisoned in the penitentiary not exceeding two years. It shall not be necessary to prove either of the said marriages by the register or certificate thereof, or other record evidence; but the same may be proved by such evidence as is admissible to prove a marriage in other cases, and when such second marriage shall have taken place without this state, cohabitation in this state after such second marriage shall be deemed the commission of the crime of bigamy, and the trial in such case may take place in the county where such cohabitation shall have occurred. Nothing herein contained shall extend to any person or persons whose husband or wife shall have been continually absent from such person or persons for the space of five years together, prior to the said second marriage, and he or she not knowing such husband or wife to be living within that time. Also nothing herein contained shall extend to any person that is or shall be at the time of such second marriage divorced by lawful authority from the bonds of such former marriage, or to any person where the former marriage hath been by lawful authority declared void.

Sec. 122. If any man or woman being unmarried, shall knowingly marry the husband or wife of another, such man or woman shall, on conviction, be fined not more than five hundred dollars, or imprisoned not more than one year.

Sec. 123. Any man and woman who shall live together in an open state of adultery or fornication, or adultery and fornication, every such man and woman shall be indicted, and on conviction, shall be fined in any sum not exceeding two hundred dollars each, or imprisoned not exceeding six months. This offence shall be sufficiently proved by circumstances which raise the presumption of cohabitation and unlawful intimacy; and for a second offence, such man or woman shall be severally punished twice as much as the former punishment, and for the third offence, treble, and thus increasing the punishment for each succeeding offence: Provided, however, That it shall be in the power of the party or parties offending, to prevent or suspend the prosecution by their intermarriage, if such marriage can be legally solemnized, and upon the payment of the costs of such prosecution.