In the days since the Archbishop of Canterbury delighted us with his vision of a multi-legal Britain, I realise that I've failed to even mention a moving example of the parallel Britain that already exists.
Six days ago it was reported that a 54-year old named Randolph Edge was convicted of bigamy after a guest invited to Mr Edge's hasty second-marriage (to a younger lady by the cautionary name of Patience Carey) remembered that Mr Edge was still betrothed to his first wife (the more aged Edna Winkle). Taken to court, sentenced to 100 hours community service and given a twelve-month supervision order, the Judge sentencing Edge said:
'You are very lucky. The last person I sentenced for bigamy went straight to prison... You flouted a law designed to preserve respect for marriage.'
I'm sure I don't have to remind readers here of how unfortunate Mr Edge (and the Judge's previous bigamist) was. Not being a Muslim, Mr Edge was prosecuted after running a mere two wives concurrently. Had he been a Muslim in the same country he could easily have doubled his wife-bank to four with no risk of prosecution. In addition, instead of having to hide his wives from each other, or from the state, he could have lived with them all and claimed £10,000 a year from the state in income support alone.
It used to be said that bigamy was the 'poor-man's divorce.' Surely there is now a case for all poor people in the UK to claim their cultural right to multiple wives. Or are some things not up for grabs in multi-legal - sorry, multicultural - Britain?
