promise of marriag

PROMISE OF MARRIAGE. A contract mutually entered into by a man and a woman 
capable of contracting matrimony, that they will marry each other. 
     2. When one of the contracting parties violates his or her promise to 
the other, the latter may support an action against the former for damages, 
which are sometimes very liberally given. To entitle the plaintiff to 
recover damages, however, the defendant must not have been incapable of 
making the contract at, the time, and such incapacity must not have been 
known to the opposite party; as, if a married man were to promise to marry a 
woman, and he afterwards refused to do so. 
     3. The canon law punished these breaches of promises by ecclesiastical 
censures. 
     4. According to the ancient jurisprudence of France, damage's could 
have been recovered for the in execution of this engagement, and cases are 
reported which show a considerable liberality on this subject. M. Maynon, 
counsellor in the parliament of Paris, was condemned to sixty thousand 
livres damages; and a M. Hebert to fourteen thousand livres. D'Hericourt, 
Lois Ecclesiastiques, titre du Mariage, art. 1, n. 13. By the modern law of 
France, damages may be recovered for the violation of this contract. 
     5. In Germany and Holland damages may also be recovered. Voet, in 
Pandectas, tit. de sponsalibus, n. 12; Huberus, in Pandectas, eod. tit. n. 
19. And the Prussian code regulates the amount of damages to be paid under a 
variety of circumstances. Part 1, b. 2, tit. 2. Vide 2 Chit. Pr. 52; Rose, 
Civ. Ev. 193; 2 Car. & P. 631; 4 Esp. R. 258; 1 C. & P. 350; Holt, R. 151; 
S. C. 3 E. C. L. R. 57; 7 Cowen, 22; 1 John. Cas. 116; 6 Cowen, 254; 4 
Cowen, 355; 7 Wend. 142.