Every now and then when I get bored, I’ll browse through the Wikipedia website and then click on “Random Article” to see what pops up.
Most of the time, something arcane will load (such as a write-up on “Activity-Centered Ergonomics” or on the history of some random Canadian radio station) and I’ll just click it again.
But every now and again, something interesting will pop up.
One such page I found the other day discussed the (now largely archaic) legal concept of “Breach of Promise”. I had been vaguely aware of the fact that there used to be such a thing, but it was interesting to revisit that concept in more depth.
Most of you who are in business will understand the concept of “breach of contract”: a contract is an agreement between two people where one promises to do something for the other (in return for “consideration” that is bargained for, most often being a certain specified amount of money) and a breach occurs when one party does not live up to his end of that agreement.
At that point, the aggrieved party is likely to sue the offender in order to enforce that agreement (or to be awarded monetary damages instead).
Not all breaches are considered equal,
especially where marriage is concerned
That’s the basic rule. But “breach of promise” was much more specific. Despite the broad name, it did not apply to just any sort of promise. Rather, it applied only to a man’s promise to marry a particular woman. If you got engaged and you then later broke off the engagement (and therefore did not go through the actual wedding), the no-longer-engaged woman could then sue you for monetary damages.
“…
even in those days, it was not really a ‘man’s world’
…”
Suppose it was the woman who broke off the engagement rather than the man … could the no-longer-engaged man then sue the woman for monetary damages? Nope … even in those days, it was not really a “man’s world”. Rather, it was a woman’s prerogative to change her mind, so the poor sap would be out of luck (at least in terms of the chance of getting any redress from the legal system).
Was that fair? Of course not … but that seems the norm in many family court matters even today.
Nowadays, I doubt that many jurisdictions still apply such a concept for engagements that are broken off. But the fact that they once did shows how society traditionally saw the concept of marriage.
For example, “breach of contract” refers to business deals and “breach of promise” was the same sort of concept (but much more narrowly focused).
Does that mean marriage is
actually a business deal?
Unromantically enough, yes.
Marriage is largely a business deal (although it can be more than that for some people). Of course there is a lot of pomp and ceremony related to courtship and engagement as well as in the wedding ceremony itself which is intended to obscure that reality, but you will learn the score if and when you get to divorce court some years later.
Dissolving a marriage is a lot like dissolving a business partnership: the assets will get divvied up and any continuing income streams will be allocated by some formula. And (except in “no fault” jurisdictions) there might even be claims of past impropriety for which additional damages will be sought.
But if you and I had entered a business partnership, your share of the assets and the accumulated profits (upon dissolution) would be based on what portion of the money you had put into the partnership originally. That’s the usual arrangement … if it’s a 50-50 partnership, that applies both going in (you have to provide 50% of the funding, take 50% of the risks and do more or less 50% of the productive work) as well as on the back end when the partnership is being dissolved and the remaining money is divvied up between the two partners.
It doesn’t work that way with marital partnerships
It’s only a 50-50 deal on the back end. There’s no legal requirement that each party bring the same dollar amount of assets to the marriage, earn the same number of dollars while in the marriage or be equally frugal along the way. It’s presumed to be the case and therefore the concept of symmetry of contribution does not enter into the calculus.
“…
what were women giving the man in return for his promising to marry her?
…”
Another interesting aspect is the “consideration” … what were women giving the man in return for his promising to marry her? After all, any other sort of “contract” requires that there be consideration involved.
According to Wikipedia, one possibility is that a woman who was engaged was more likely to give up her virginity (in effect, jumping the gun a bit in advance of the actual wedding night). So in that sense, “breach of promise” suits worked a bit like antique stores still do:
“You break it, you bought it”
The oddest part of the entire write-up was a link to another Wikipedia article, this one being about a 1942 British movie which was also titled “Breach of Promise”. Here is the quick plot summary from that Wikipedia article:
“A playwright meets a young woman and she soon files a fake breach of promise action against him, hoping to receive a blackmail payment. Instead he decides to marry her to teach her a lesson.”
Maybe it’s just me, but that plot progression strikes me as being totally bizarre.
I can certainly imagine a woman making a fake claim about male misbehavior (I’ve seen it happen many times), so that part is entirely plausible to me. But to then marry her to teach her a lesson?
What was the lesson … that guys can be even dumber than she realized?
What could the guy possibly be thinking???
Here’s a woman who has clearly shown herself to have no scruples, having blatantly lied in an effort to scam money out of him. But despite her having shown herself to be a woman no man in his right mind should want to get involved at all with, he then marries her (so that she’d then be able to take a far bigger chunk of his money in divorce court later)! Yikes!
That had to have been a “chick flick”.
Stay tuned,
-Mack Doppler
