Lawyer Ernestina Obboh Botchwey has stated that ex-girlfriends and ex-boyfriends suing their former partners for refusing to marry them after making such promises must have good enough evidence to prove that indeed there was a promise to marry which got breached.
Ms Botchwey explained that because people can easily deny that they said such a thing, texts and WhatsApp messages promising marriage can be used to support word-of-mouth promises of marriage.
“In the law we see that the promise to marry is just like a contract. If someone says I will marry you and you also say I will, then that’s a contract. It’s an agreement and somebody has also accepted and agreed to marry you. So those two exchanges of promises translate into a contract. So if someone says I will marry you and then they say I will no longer marry you. The contract has been breached and that is why we say breach of contract to marry,” she said in a video on her YouTube channel, Lawyer Tina.
She continued: “So please look out for all the things you can use to prove. And I am telling you that you can use words, you can use WhatsApp messages, you can use implied things – it can be that you were in Cape Coast and then this person said,” ok move here. Come and join me in Tamale.” And then you went there. You left your job and went to Tamale and you guys have been living together because everybody knows that you people are preparing for marriage.
Those two things can be used or those three things can be used together for everybody to know that [ you were indeed promised marriage]. It can support the position of the man [or the woman] that they agreed to marry even if one person is denying it,” she explained on her YouTube channel, Lawyer Tina.
Ms Botchwey’s videos on Ghanaian law has sparked discussions, especially on social media, on some important aspects of the law that many people were oblivious of.
Source: mynewsghana
