BBC 12 June, 2001, 12:27 GMT 13:27 UK

Bigamy row in Colombia

What's the maximim punishment for a bigamist, asks one of Colombia's internet joke sites.

Having two mothers-in-law.

But church leaders in the devoutly Roman Catholic country are not laughing.

From July 24 bigamy will be taken off Colombia's statute books as a criminal offence.

Leading, depending on your point of view, to an outbreak of immorality and cheating spouses, or not much change at all.

Bishop Hector Gutierrez Pabon is shocked by the move. "This will lead to promiscuity," he says.

Lovers' paradise

Congressman Germán Navas Talero is worried Colombia will become a paradise for furtive lovers, underhand husbands and unfaithful wives.

He says marriage will become as cheap and easy as in America's Reno, Nevada, where couples can get married for just $35.

Colombia's chief prosector Alfonso Gomez Mendez, one of the driving forces behind the decriminalisation, shrugs off these fears as exaggerated.

He says only "two or three" legal cases have been brought against bigamists in Colombia since 1936. If found guilty they faced one to three years in prison.

With so few cases on the books, "I believe it is no longer justified to keep (the law)," Mr Gomez says.

He points out that angry spouses will still be able to take their bigamous partners to court in civil actions, for example as grounds for a divorce.

"The best punishment for a bigamist is a second marriage," says Mr Gomez, who may have been reading the joke site himself.

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2001