Page 63 - The Circle of Life

that that system can be defended. It was a crime against humanity and an

example of what happens when an artificial imbalance is created.

If you lose your ring it does not mean you stop being engaged. You can only

legally stop being engaged if you break the engagement or with death of one or
both of the partners at the same time which is called commorientes in law. We

always presume the man, being bigger and stronger, took longer to die than the
wife. With death the engagement stops automatically. You cannot marry a dead

person because of the lack of consensus for one. Nor can you marry anything
which is not human (it happens that you see an idiot "marrying" his bike or a

woman her dog).

It is not possible to stop an engagement by doing nothing even though in our
customary law the husband may refuse to eat his wife's food and that may be

seen as divorce. The point is the law being neutral wants to make logical
deductions on your behaviour. There must be no room for doubts on your

intentions. You have to show what you mean in a practical way. The same is
true in reverse. If a woman takes her ring off and throws it at her fiancé it is

very strong evidence that she does not wish to carry on with the engagement
and the subsequent marriage. Clearly she may also just give it back or send it to

him by mail or messenger. No need for unpleasantness.

Returning gifts is also strong evidence that the marriage is off. Not making any

arrangements for the wedding may be indicative but note that there is no time

limit on engagements before tying the knot so to speak. It may be a few hours
or decades. The law simply does not prescribe a time but the dirty looks from
your future mother in law may indicate that the time is near.

This was not always the case because under Roman law a widow could not

legally be married within one year of her husband's death (did not need to be
actually dead - if captured as a prisoner of war he was considered dead). This

was to ensure that any children to be born be borne within that year so that no
arguments could follow afterwards on whose children it were. This is not the

case today. A widow can marry when she pleases though of course the
community may frown on a hasty marriage the law does not prevent that at all.

Clearly a widower could also marry whenever he could find a new wife.

62