Church Discipline: Bigamy

I have dealt with several cases of Church discipline in ministry -- I should say, we the Church have dealt with them. One such situation occurred when a faithful Church member married a second wife at a large celebration -- yet omitted the small detail of informing his existing wife. Both he and his original wife were faithful Church members. Such situations can arise in Africa, where there are various systems of marriage, civil, traditional, and religious. There were two problems here. Firstly, that the second marriage was both illegal (mixing civil and traditional marriages) and immoral, and secondly, that he suddenly left his existing wife destitute. So we, the Church, negotiated a solution. We would suspend his Church membership until he would legalise his situation -- and address the destitution of his wife. OBSERVATION: Things looked promising, but ultimately we terminated his membership. However, he continued to attend Church.