It is here again, the day when people go all out to express their love for one another. This year, Valentine’s Day falls within the Lenten season, but that should not stop anyone from expressing their love, because as we are told, love comes in various forms. However, some activities that have come to be associated with Valentine’s Day need some consideration so that they day does not turn sour for some people.
The amorous couple: Those who are not trying to be more pious than the Pope may have some special plans that involve sex with a love interest. Big plans and money may go into gifts, wining and dining, all with the expectation that there will be sex at the end of the day. While these may be great plans for Valentine’s Day, control and consent should never be absent in the equation. The party making sexual advances must be sure that the other party is legally able to give consent, and in fact gives consent. Let the consent be expressly given. Implied consent can get one into trouble – her lips were saying no, but her body was saying yes; her eyes told me to go ahead. If you do not get express consent to proceed, or are getting mixed messages, this is where the control kicks in;your ability to control yourself and back away from a potential sexual assault offence.
The proposal: Many couples around the world choose Valentine’s Day to propose to their future spouses. Love is in the air, why not take advantage and put your love footprints on the Day with a wedding proposal. Usually, proposals come with engagement rings – the larger the diamond, the better. But the status of the engagement ring has been the subject of letters to agony aunts across the world. The question being should the ring be returned if the engagement is called off? The answers from agony aunts are just as varied as the answers from the courts. Yes, people have landed in court on the foot of broken engagements and engagement rings as some rings can cost a fortune. Anyway, the courts that have dealt with this issue are not in agreement as to whether the engagement ring is a gift, free of all encumbrances, or whether it is a conditional gift. In some jurisdictions, the engagement ring is a conditional gift, a gift that is not final until some condition is met, in this case, the wedding. Where the engagement ring is a conditional gift, then the party who gave the ring is entitled to have it back should the engagement be broken. But even amongst jurisdictions that find hold the engagement ring to be a conditional gift, there is no agreement when it comes to fault for the break up. In some jurisdictions, the giver of the ring gets it back if the receiver/giftee was the one that broke off the engagement, but the receiver gets to keep the ring if it was the giver/gifter that broke off the engagement. It other jurisdictions, it does not matter who broke off the engagement, the giver/gifter gets the ring back. Affairs of the heart are never easy… even the courts come to it with some difficulty.
The wedding: So the proposal goes well, and there are no issues during the engagement. The next thing to do is to plan a wedding. For some, a quick visit to the marriage registry will suffice, for others it must be an affair of fairy tale proportions. Weddings cost money and involve contracts. It is important for couples to take these two things seriously as they plan their wedding. The tradition was that the wedding was paid for by the bride’s family. I am not sure if that is still the way things are done, but I see more cases where the couple take on the responsibility for the expenses. How they split the cost is a matter for them to decide. There will be service contracts for the reception venue, the caterer, the decorator, etc. It is important to know the terms of every contract you enter into. Total costs, deposits, delivery date and time, variations, cancellation fees, etc., are all things that must be expressly discussed and form the terms of the contract. I attended a wedding a while ago and the MC arrived two hours late to the wedding reception. I don’t know what the arrangement was with his fees, but I would say that arriving on time should have been an essential term in his service contract, the breach of which would entitle the couple to some remedy. On the extreme end of contracts related to a wedding is a loan contract. Years ago, I had a work colleague whose younger brother was struggling with debt because he had taken out a bank loan to give his sweetheart the wedding of her dreams. The marriage lasted a little over a year. The loan was taken out in his name and so he was stuck paying for a wedding that yielded little fruit.
The marriage: Assuming all goes well, both parties keep their promise to marry and go through the process of making their union official and legal, it is time to live happily ever after. But do not forget, in marriage, you enter into a contract with your spouse. Most of the terms of that contract are between the couple, but there are some terms that are implied by law, one being that neither party is in another marriage contract with a third party. False representation or fraudulent concealment of material facts about either party may be grounds for dissolution of the marriage contract. In jurisdictions where people can still take an action to court for breach of promise to marry, these are also some of the defences that can be pleaded. But keep in mind that once you are married, the presumption is that promises between spouses are not intended to create legal relations. So if a husband promises his wife an allowance of ten thousand naira a week, the wife will not be able to claim a breach of contract when the husband unilaterally cuts the allowance to six thousand naira. Unless, of course, the wife can prove that there was a valid contract and it was intended to be legally binding.
Happy Valentine’s Day to you all. May your day be full of love!
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