Remarriage after Divorce Was Not an Option

I've been studying many of Mississippi's laws that affect our research as genealogists. Sargent's Code, the earliest collection of laws dating back to 1799 in the Territorial Period of the state's history is not freely available online. However, an 1807 version of The Statues of the Mississippi Territory is available at Google Books.

In today's culture and society, remarriage after a divorce is pretty commonplace, but in the early days of Mississippi's existence, it was not permitted. Chapter 13, section 4 of this code reads:

And be it further enacted, That divorces from the bond of matrimony shall also be decreed, where either of the parties had another wife or husband, living at the time of such second or other marriages : and that all marriages, where either of the parties shall have a former wife or husband living, at the time of such marriage, shall be invalid from the beginning, and absolutely void.