Homework Question on Breach of Promise to Marry
- First, review the following commentary on Engagement Rings as Conditional Gifts. Who gets the ring and why?
- Now, to get into the practice of finding your state law of Iowa with regards to family issues, perform some research on your jurisdiction’s theory on this issue and answer the following question:
- Does it matter who gets the ring if fault is involved?
Homework Answer on Breach of Promise to Marry
A broken engagement can be very stressful and confusing. Other than the pain and distress, the parties involved must agree on who will remain with the engagement ring. Courts differ on solving the issue based on the classification a given gift. Mostly, engagement rings are classified as the conditional items (Cronk & Dunham, 2007).
Conditional gifts are exempted from the statute that gifts are irrevocable if issued honestly and accurately. If the court considers the engagement ring as a conditional gift, it may be returned to the provider. Consider a case where the donor of the ring gives with the condition of marrying the receiver. If the agreed event does not occur, the donor of the ring can ask the ring back. However, the court can consider the gift legal on three conditions: the donor indicates the desire to give the ring, the donor delivering the item, and the donee’s acceptance of the gift (Monger, 2013).
The inherent symbolism of the gift itself is deemed to foreclose the need to build a clear condition that there be a marriage. The jurisdiction theory supports the return of the engagement rings only if the donor has not unjustifiably broken off the engagement. For instance, Canada and the United States reject considerations of fault in the breaking of an engagement and always require the return of the ring to the donor when the engagement is broken.