Gallifrey Stands! The Day of the Doctor was a magnificent tribute to 50 years of Doctor Who. There was action, heroics, and 50 years of geek homages.
And of course, the question hiding in plain sight: Could the Tenth Doctor have a valid marriage to Queen Elizabeth I? Does this marriage make the Doctor a bigamist, given the Eleventh Doctor’s marriages to Marilyn Monroe in 1952 and and River Song in 2011?
As a preliminary matter, bigamy is the act of marrying one person while still legally married to another. Westlaw Black’s Law 9th Dictionary App. The law only allows a person to have one spouse at a time. See, Antony T. v Rosemarie B.T., 41 Misc. 3d 1208(A), 1208A (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2013), citing 11 NY Prac, New York Law of Domestic Relations § 9:5.
The Tenth Doctor’s marriage to Queen Elizabeth I in the 1564 is the earliest known marriage to a human. The Eleventh Doctor marriage to Marilyn Monroe was on Christmas Eve 1952 and to River Song on April 22, 2011 in an alternate timeline.
(a) A subsequent marriage contracted by a person during the life of a former husband or wife of the person, with a person other than the former husband or wife, is illegal and void from the beginning, unless:
(1) The former marriage has been dissolved or adjudged a nullity before the date of the subsequent marriage.
(2) The former husband or wife (i) is absent, and not known to the person to be living for the period of five successive years immediately preceding the subsequent marriage, or (ii) is generally reputed or believed by the person to be dead at the time the subsequent marriage was contracted.
Cal Fam Code § 2201.
The Eleventh Doctor’s marriage to Marilyn Monroe was 349 years after the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603. Pursuant to Cal Fam Code § 2201(a)(2)(ii), the Doctor had a valid marriage to Marilyn Monroe, because Queen Elizabeth I was dead at the time the Doctor-Monroe marriage was contracted in 1952. In arguendo, the Tenth Doctor abandoned his marriage to Elizabeth I, which explained her anger in The Shakespeare Code that was never again addressed in the series.
The Doctor-Monroe marriage had to be annulled sometime shortly after the marriage, because Monroe married Joe DiMaggio in 1954 and then Arthur Miller in 1956. However, if not annulled, the Doctor-Monroe marriage would void the subsequent marriages to DiMaggio and Miller.
The Doctor’s marriage to River Song appears to not have a prior marriage that would nullify it, because it was 408 years after the death of Elizabeth I (however, all of time was collapsing on itself) and the dissolution of the Monroe marriage or Monroe’s death in 1962 (assuming the marriage was never annulled). This also assumed a marriage in Egypt in an alternate reality bound only by a bow tie without a marriage license is valid.
