Confused.

[Sqad]

Back in the 50's, if you asked a girl to marry you and gave her a ring (engagement ring).......you were engaged and she ceased to be your girlfirend and become your fiancee.

Now, if you did not go through with your pledge to marry her, she could sue you through the courts. Was that ever the situation and if so when did the law change?

[McMouse]

Law was abolished in 1970.

[Sqad]

LOL.

Do you ever get the feeling that you wished you had never asked?

[Sqad]

Thanks all.

[sebhfhion]

so Sqad, how many court cases do you think you may have initiated?

[Sqad]

seb...LOL...not mine and that's all i care about......

[albaqwerty]

sqad, frequently, usually after I've hit the submit button :-)

[Alston]

Is this what the Doctor ordered.:-)

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1970/33

Al.

[DTCwordfan]

Sqad, I believe that has always been the case as the pledge is an oral promise, therefore a contract, the exchange of a ring acting as consideration. Barmaid will pull me up if I am wrong. It's just that it isn't that often enacted on, though it used to be and can often be done between Jewish families.

[DTCwordfan]

Well there we are as to the Law.....

[Peter Pedant]

It is here:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1970/33/contents

Law Reform Miscellaneous Provisions Act

altho I thought it was a 1967 Act - and it isnt

One of the last actions - brought under the old law - that is after the Act was in force because the breach of promise occurred before the act,
was Miss Mercy Appiah's case.

She lost

[FredPuli43]

W.S. Gilbert (himself a lawyer by training) and Arthur Sullivan wrote Trial by Jury, the whole plot of which was an action for breach of promise of marriage.

And at least one real judge, Sir Harold Cassel Q.C. was successfully sued for it, though he wasn't a judge at the time. No doubt the fact that he was the scion of a banking family, which had financed much of Britain's national efforts in Edwardian times, did not, how shall I put it, dissuade the plaintiff from starting the action :)