Peculiarities of origin and development of the Institute of engagement

The master’s thesis concerns one of the important institutions of the family law – engagement. The work discusses the main aspects of the origins and development of the engagement institution from ancient times till today. The thesis includes such topics as the legal character of engagement, engagement as a pre-marriage contract, the actuality of the dowry institution, and all the main issues connected to engagement and marriage.
The topic we have chosen has a centuries’ history. Engagement is a prerequisite of creating a family, it is connected to marriage itself, though we have to mention that, recently, the phenomenon of family is in danger. Destruction of traditional families has become more frequent. The problem is global and it must be paid much more attention to.
According to historical sources, the public wisdom has created the custom of engagement not by accident. It is known that this tradition was of a great importance in upcoming happiness of the future spouses and their close people. After the engagement, the couple, as well as their families got much more acquainted to each other, evaluated if their decision was advisable and feasible. Engagement promoted to avoid a hasty marriage, and it decreased the number of divorces. In the history of the Georgian law we meet different traditions of engagement: they engaged the woman before birth, or when she was still in cradle, etc. Each form of engagement is the reflection of society development steps. Therefore, we can easily see the evolutionary line of the society.
The engagement institution, during its development, has passed through many historical changes, as government and society have always been trying to make it perfect and fit to the times. Our goal is to study the advantages and disadvantages of the ancient family traditions of the Georgian people from the point of view of law. We will also try to compare it to the engagement institution of other countries. In the process of the research, we used theoretical works of the scientists, whose studies have enriched the Georgian legal thinking. We were guided by other countries’ historical sources as well.