North Carolina § 14-183 Bigamy

North Carolina Statutes

§ 14-183 — Bigamy

North Carolina § 14-183

Ch. 14Criminal Law

Art. 26Offenses Against Public Morality and Decency

This text of North Carolina § 14-183 (Bigamy) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering North Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-183 (2026).

Text

If any person, being married, shall marry any other person during the life of the former husband or wife, every such offender, and every person counseling, aiding or abetting such offender, shall be punished as a Class I felon. Any such offense may be dealt with, tried, determined and punished in the county where the offender shall be apprehended, or be in custody, as if the offense had been actually committed in that county. If any person, being married, shall contract a marriage with any other person outside of this State, which marriage would be punishable as bigamous if contracted within this State, and shall thereafter cohabit with such person in this State, he shall be guilty of a felony and shall be punished as in cases of bigamy. Nothing contained in this section shall extend to an

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If any person, being married, shall marry any other person during the life of the former husband or wife, every such offender, and every person counseling, aiding or abetting such offender, shall be punished as a Class I felon. Any such offense may be dealt with, tried, determined and punished in the county where the offender shall be apprehended, or be in custody, as if the offense had been actually committed in that county. If any person, being married, shall contract a marriage with any other person outside of this State, which marriage would be punishable as bigamous if contracted within this State, and shall thereafter cohabit with such person in this State, he shall be guilty of a felony and shall be punished as in cases of bigamy. Nothing contained in this section shall extend to any person marrying a second time, whose husband or wife shall have been continually absent from such person for the space of seven years then last past, and shall not have been known by such person to have been living within that time; nor to any person who at the time of such second marriage shall have been lawfully divorced from the bond of the first marriage; nor to any person whose former marriage shall have been declared void by the sentence of any court of competent jurisdiction. (See 9 Geo. IV, c. 31, s. 22; 1790, c. 323, P.R.; 1809, c. 783, P.R.; 1829, c. 9; R.C., c. 34, s. 15; Code, s. 988; Rev., s. 3361; 1913, c. 26; C.S., s. 4342; 1979, c. 760, s. 5; 1979, 2nd Sess., c. 1316, s. 47; 1981, c. 63, s. 1, c. 179, s. 14; 1993, c. 539, s. 1193; 1994, Ex. Sess., c. 24, s. 14(c).)