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By Yejide Gbenga-Ogundare
There are many times when love turns sour and for one reason or the other, a once promising relationship loses its savour and a partner is jilted even after a marriage proposal is made.
In such circumstances, what can the jilted lover do? Cry, curse and mudsling? Or are there legal remedies available for a jilted partner after being engaged or a marriage proposal has been made?
Yes. There are legal provisions under the Nigerian law and it is known as the Breach of Promise to Marry’ (BOPM). Under this provision, you can sue someone who promised to marry you and later changed their mind.
In Nigerian law, an agreement to marry is viewed as a binding legal contract as long as a party can show that there is an actual existence of a promise to marry and one party breaches the agreement.
However, this falls under a civil claim like other breach of business agreements and you can’t sue for the court to force the person to follow through on their promise and marry you. The only relief the court can grant when breach is proved is to award damages to an aggrieved party when there has indeed been a breach of promise to marry.
Breach of promise is the violation of one’s word or undertaking, especially a promise to marry. Under the common law, an engagement to marry has the nature of a commercial contract, so if one party breaks the engagement without justification, the innocent party is entitled to damages even under the English law.
Before you can sue for BOPM, it is important to be able to prove some points; the relationship must have gone beyond the level of mere affection, the partners must have had a mutual exchange of promises to marry whether oral, written, expressed or implied.
Also, the court can award damages against a third party who instigates a breach of promise to marry; friends and family usually fall in this category.
There are two types of Breach of Promise to Marry ; non-performance or actual breach which is when parties fix a date for marriage and one of the parties does not show up and anticipatory or speculative breach which occurs when before the date fixed by the parties, one of the parties does something that suggests that the marriage will not hold. E.g. eloping with someone else, impregnating someone else and performing marital rites.
It should be noted that an agreement to enter into a marriage should leave nobody in doubt as to the real intention of the parties to enter into a marriage.
So, before buying acid or matchet to fight a partner that jilts you, remember the law has you covered. Don’t go to jail because of revenge.
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