Engagement and Marriage Laws in the Countries of the World

The Commission on Women's Rights of the United Nations, at its fourth session, held last year, adopted a resolution requesting the Secretary-General of the United Nations to obtain from the member states and from the non-governmental organizations reliable information concerning the status of woman in the personal status laws of the various countries, and to submit to it a detailed report on this information.

In this article we shall review the regulations concerning engagement and marriage as laid down in the personal status laws of the countries covered by the report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Engagement and its legal effect:

The Secretary-General opens his report by noting that engagement is the mutual pledge between a man and a woman to marry, and he adds that the legal character and the provisions of this pledge vary markedly with the difference of legal systems in the countries of the world, according to those countries' traditions and customs.

In the Anglo-Saxon system, engagement gives rise to an obligation to marry. If the sanctity of this obligation is violated, the injured party has the right to claim damages for the loss and injury suffered, including social injury.

In Britain, for example, if one party breaks off the engagement, the other party may sue the first for breach of the promise of marriage, and may be compensated for the substantial damages incurred. Statistics show that most of these cases are brought by women, not by men.

This system is followed in Australia as well: if the obligations of engagement are cast aside, recourse may be had to the courts... And in Australia, as in Britain, the number of women litigants exceeds that of men in cases arising from broken engagements.

In the United States of America, the rules of engagement and marriage differ from one state to another. The laws of a number of these states recognize engagement and regard it as having binding effect toward marriage in the eyes of the law, allowing the injured party to sue the party who has broken the pledge. But the number of these states is gradually shrinking.

The Germanic legal systems provide that if one party breaks the pledge of marriage, he is liable to pay material damages in proportion to the losses suffered by the other party.

The Scandinavian countries, for their part, do not regard engagement as binding toward marriage. But these countries, with the exception of Norway, require the party who breaks off the engagement to pay the expenses incurred by the other party in preparation for the marriage.

In France, a promise of marriage carries no legal obligation; the French courts, however, have made it their practice to hold the party who breaks off an engagement liable to pay damages, if the breaking off has caused injury. A number of the Latin American states have borrowed the principles of French law, and the laws of these states have stripped engagement of its legal effect — the law followed in Chile, Colombia, Argentina, and Venezuela provides that engagement is a private personal matter left to a man's honor and his conscience.

In Poland, where the courts may not regard engagement as ground for compelling any party to marry, the law nevertheless entitles the injured party to obtain damages from the party who has broken the pledge of marriage, if the breach had no justifying cause.

In Spain and Holland, the law permits claims for damages when material injury results from breach of the pledge of marriage, provided the pledge of marriage has been officially published in the press.

In Italy, Portugal, and Mexico, breach of the promise of marriage obliges the breaching party to return the gifts and presents.

In the majority of the other states of the world, the legal provisions governing engagement are nearly the same for both parties... And statistics show that women in both Australia and Britain resort more often to the courts, claiming damages for men's breaking off of engagements...

In Ireland, the law considers that it is the woman who bears the financial and social injuries resulting from breach of the promise of marriage — which entitles her to resort to the courts to obtain damages. In Norway, where engagement has no legal effect whatever, a man may be punished for refusing — without substantial cause — to marry his fiancée after having consummated relations with her.

In the Soviet Union, the law makes no provision for anything called engagement. In Yugoslavia, recourse may be had to the courts with respect to obtaining compensation for the gifts exchanged in anticipation of the expected marriage. And if one of the two parties has practiced fraud upon the other, the public prosecutor may proceed with criminal proceedings at the request of the injured party.

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The conditions to be met by an applicant for marriage:

In general, it may be said that the conditions that must be met by an applicant for marriage before he is legally permitted to marry are equal as between man and woman; the minimum age for marriage, however, varies greatly from one country to another.

While the laws in force in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and the United States of America do not permit a girl to marry before she has reached eighteen years of age, the laws of a large number of other countries — among them Australia, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, New Zealand, Southern Rhodesia, and others — permit a girl to marry when she is only twelve years old.

The legal age of marriage for men ranges between twenty-one, in Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and the United States of America, and fourteen, in a number of states, among them Australia, New Zealand, Southern Rhodesia, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, and Ecuador.

If one of the two parties applying for marriage has not attained the legal age, the laws of most countries require that the minor party obtain the consent of his parents, or of the guardian, or of the court, to his marriage before it is contracted.

The laws of both Sweden and Denmark provide that a young man who has not reached twenty-one years of age, or a girl who has not reached eighteen, must obtain a special royal license before either is permitted to marry.

And the laws of some countries require men to obtain medical certificates attesting to their health and their fitness for marriage before they marry.