bigamous marriage?

From what I can gather, there was never any decree of divorce issued to dissolve the marriage of Edwin and Rasmina Ekdahl. 

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=11535&relPageId=2

What does this mean in terms of the marriage between Ekdahl and Marguerite?

The marriage is legally void, however if no one catches it (and sometimes even when it is caught but they've since had children), the marriage is treated as valid.

beowulf wrote:The marriage is legally void, however if no one catches it (and sometimes even when it is caught but they've since had children), the marriage is treated as valid.

So to dissolve this marriage that was legally void anyway, they still needed to divorce... or was the Oswald-Ekdahl divorce completely unnecessary? 

Sorry - not trying to be dense here, but I've been immersed in Ekdahl research and there are so many areas of concern already that it wouldn't have surprised me to learn that the marriage and/or divorce were total shams.

So to dissolve this marriage that was legally void anyway, they still needed to divorce... or was the Oswald-Ekdahl divorce completely unnecessary? 

Its tricky, what they should is get an annulment, where a court says the marriage was void ab initio (invalid from the outset) but some states don't allow this option. Since the rest of the world thinks you're married, you basically have to get a divorce otherwise if the innocent party later marries someone else, THAT marriage would look bigamous because no annulment or divorce decree was issued for the prior marriage.

The interesting case is when someone is missing and presumed dead but isn't (like Tom Hanks in Castaway). After the court declares someone legally dead, the "widow" is free to remarry, and when the shipwrecked spouse shows up again... the death certificate is treated as a divorce decree.

Thank you once again. An annulment was what I was thinking - but looks like that option wasn't available.

Like I hinted... the whole thing is a little strange...

Ekdahl was said to be in very bad health and begging a resistant Marguerite to marry him.

And then there is this from Marguerite's friend, Myrtle Evans:

Mr. JENNER - She said that he had had a heart attack, is that right? 
Mrs. EVANS - Yes; she did. 
Mr. JENNER - And he was courting her during this time? 
Mrs. EVANS - Yes, sir. 
Mr. JENNER - His sister came down from Boston, is that right, to sort of see how he was getting along here, is that correct? 
Mrs. EVANS - That's right. I guess that's what prompted her to come down here, because he had had this trouble, and I guess she was concerned about him. 
Mr. JENNER - And that courtship between him and Marguerite ripened into marriage then; is that right? 
Mrs. EVANS - Yes. 
Mr. JENNER - Did Ekdahl's sister approve of Marguerite? 
Mrs. EVANS - Oh, yes; she wanted her to marry Ekdahl, and before she went back to Boston, Margie made her a promise that she would look after him. 

Surely Ekdahl's sister knew her brother was still married to Rasmina?

This may seem like trivia, I know, but there are reasons for the questions, and the rhetorical question marks being placed...