Civil Responsibility of Nullifying Marital Engagement Based on the Pride Principle in Imam Khomeini’s Approach

Engagement for marriage is a contract between two people for joint marital life in future. According to the current laws in force (Article 1035 GH.M), engagement is a religiously recommended contract and there is no obligation for either party before recital to force the other to marry. However, one of the important points in relation to the need to observe Sharia limits in relations between the people and preventing violation of the rights of either party concerns the scope of liability. In this case, the question is: Can either party request indemnities for termination of the engagement contract? On this basis, this paper intends to resort to the authentic and reliable sources to come to the conclusion that the damage incurred by either party as a result of termination of engagement will be claimable by rule of the Sharia law in case of the lack of any justifiable reason and based on the valid principle of pride. The right to claim damage will be in no contradiction with the right to terminate the engagement itself.