A promise of marriage is a contract entered into between a man and woman that they will marry each other. 2. When the promise is made between persons competent to contract matrimony, an action lies for a breach of it. Vide Promise of Marriage. A contract mutually entered into by a man and a woman capable of contracting matrimony, that they will marry each other. 2. When one of the contracting parties violates his or her promise to the other, the latter may support an action against the former for damages, which are sometimes very liberally given. To entitle the plaintiff to recover damages, however, the defendant must not have been incapable of making the contract at, the time, and such incapacity must not have been known to the opposite party; as, if a married man were to promise to marry a woman, and he afterwards refused to do so. 3. The canon law punished these breaches of promises by ecclesiastical censures.