## Facts

- The defendant, Allen, was charged with bigamy for undergoing a second marriage ceremony while his first wife was still alive.
- The offense of bigamy was criminalised to protect the monogamous nature of marriage and the integrity of marriage contracts.
- Allen argued that because his second marriage was not legally valid, he could not be convicted of bigamy.
- The defense's position was that a bigamous marriage is void and therefore not a marriage, contending no crime was committed.
- The court had to determine whether participating in a marriage ceremony, irrespective of its legal validity, satisfied the requirements of the bigamy statute.

## Issues

1. Whether participation in a second marriage ceremony while still married constitutes bigamy when the subsequent marriage is legally void.
2. Whether statutory interpretation should follow the literal wording of the bigamy statute or the legislative purpose it was designed to serve.

## Decision

- The court concluded that the act of going through a marriage ceremony while a prior marriage subsisted fulfills the criminal element of bigamy, regardless of the validity of the second marriage.
- The defendant's argument that a void ceremony could not amount to bigamy was rejected.
- A literal interpretation, as argued by the defense, would render the offense meaningless, since all bigamous marriages are necessarily invalid.
- The court instead adopted a purposive approach, interpreting the statute in light of the mischief it aimed to prevent.

## Legal Principles

- The golden rule of statutory interpretation permits deviation from literal meaning to avoid absurd or illogical results.
- A purposive approach to interpretation should be adopted where strict literalism would defeat the intention of Parliament or the efficacy of the statute.
- The actus reus of bigamy is satisfied by going through a marriage ceremony while a prior legal marriage remains in effect, irrespective of the legal validity of the second union.

## Conclusion

R v Allen [1872] LR 1 CCR 367 established that participation in a second marriage ceremony constitutes bigamy even if the ceremony is invalid, demonstrating the application of the golden rule to ensure statutes fulfill their intended purpose and do not yield absurd results.
