In French law. A contract. The obligation arising from a quasi contract.
The terms “obligation” and “engagement” are said to be synonymous, (17 Toulller, no. 1;) but the Code seems specially to apply, the term “engagement” to those obligations which the law imposes on a man without the intervention of any contract, either on the part of the obligor or the obligee, (article 1370.) An engagement to do or omit to do something amounts to a promise. Rue v. Rue, 21 N. J. Law, 369.
In English practice. The term has been appropriated to denote a contract entered into by a married woman with the intention of binding or charging her separate estate, or, with stricter accuracy, a promise which in the case of a person sui juris would be a contract but in the case of a married woman is not a contract because she cannot bind herself personally, even in equity. Her engagements, therefore, merely operate as dispositions or appointments pro tanto of her separate estate. Sweet