Question

what is bigamy? what deviance theories apply to bigamy

Answer 1

Bigamy is the condition of having two wives or two husbands at the same time. The second marriage to someone who is already legally married is void and may be annulled, while there is no effect on the first marriage. A person who knowingly commits bigamy is guilty of a crime, but it is seldom prosecuted unless it is part of a fraudulent scheme to get another's property or some other felony. A marriage in another country is normally valid in the US; so, if someone is married in another country, they cannot get married again in the US or vice versa. Bigamy may be accidental, such as when the previous divorce was not finalized due to a technicality, or the previous spouse who was presumed dead is alive. In the United States if a husband or wife is absent and unheard of for seven (or in some states five) years and not known to be alive, he or she is presumed dead, and remarriage by the other spouse is not bigamous. It is not necessarily a defense to a charge of bigamy that the offending party believed in good faith that he was divorced or that his previous marriage was not lawful.

Definition of Deviance

When most of us think of deviant behavior, we think of someone who is breaking the law or acting out in a negative manner. 'Different' or 'unexpected' are words often used to describe deviance from a sociological perspective. For our purposes, deviant means departing from the norm, and to a sociologist, that can be biased toward the positive or negative. While there are crimes that are certainly deviant because they are outside the norm.

Theories and Examples of Deviance

Deviance, like conformity, is shaped by society. In general, there are three social foundations of deviance: structural functionalism, symbolic interaction and social conflict.

Emile Durkheim is considered the 'father' of thestructural function perspective. In this perspective, society is seen as a complicated system where stability is promoted when complex parts work together. Durkheim made the surprising statement that deviance has many positive functions for a society. For example, he believed that deviance can actually bring people together in a society. Remember how patriotism surged after 9/11? This could be considered deviant because such an extreme level of patriotism was outside the norm. This is just one example of how even the most deviant of actions can help bring people together and can clarify cultural norms and values.

A second structural functionalist, Robert K. Merton, developed strain theory. Merton believed that the strain theory between our culture's emphasis on wealth and the limited opportunity to get rich gives rise (especially among the poor) to theft, the sale of drugs and other street crime. Merton would call those who use unconventional means (selling drugs) to achieve culturally-approved goals (financial security) innovators.Conformists pursue those conventional goals through approved means, such as going to college and getting a good job.

The symbolic-interaction approach explains how people define deviance in everyday situations. One theory in particular, the labeling theory, asserts that deviance and conformity are not the result of what we necessarily do, but how others respond to what we do. As a part of this theory, there is a primary and secondary deviance.Primary deviance refers to passing episodes of deviant behavior that most people participate in. Secondary deviance is when someone makes something out of that deviant behavior and is given a negative social label that changes a person's self-concept and social identity. We call this negative label a stigma.