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 defendant1 must not have been incapable2 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 breaches3 of promises by ecclesiastical censures4.
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 condemned5 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 violation6 of this contract.
5. In Germany and Holland damages may also be recovered. Voet, in Pandec tas, 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.
PROMISES, evidence. When a defendant has been arrested, he is frequently in duced to make confessions8 in consequence of promises made to him, that if he will tell the truth, he will be either discharged or favored: in such a case evidence of the confession7 cannot be received, because being obtained by the flattery of hope, it comes in so questionable9 a shape, when it is to be considered evidence of guilt10, that no credit ought to be given to it. 1 Leach11, 263. This is the principle, but what amounts to a promise is not so easily defined. Vide Confession.
PROMISEE. A person to whom a promise has been made.
2. In general a promisee can maintain an action on a promise made to him, but when the consideration moves not from the promisee, but some other person, the latter, and not the promisee, has a cause of action, because he is the person for whose use the contract was made. Latch12, 272; Poph. 81; 3 Cro. 77; 1 Raym, 271, 368; 4 B. Ad. 434; 1 N. M. 303; S. C. Cowp. 437; S. C. Dougl. 142. But see Carth. 5 2 Ventr. 307; 9 M. W. 92) 96.
