Proposals and Engagements
How the world celebratesAn engagement is not a marriage. Taiwan sets engagement at 17 and marriage at 18, and a promise to marry cannot be forced; Indonesia sets the minimum marriage age at 19 for both sexes, with lamaran serving first as public family recognition.
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| Place | When is it? | How the date is set |
|---|---|---|
| United States | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
| Brazil | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
| China | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
| Indonesia | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
| India | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
| Japan | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
| Taiwan | Date to be confirmed | Everyday topic |
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How the world celebrates
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How is it done in Brazil?
Brazil's Civil Code allows free marriage from eighteen, with parental or guardian consent from sixteen to under eighteen, and no marriage below sixteen. The noivado is a social stage in Brazil rather than a legal relationship — esponsais are not enforceable, and an engagement cannot be used to compel the other party. In practice the two families meet and rings are exchanged and worn on the right hand, moving to the left hand at the wedding, so a single ring marks both stages. In Brazil, therefore, the moment the ring changes hands is treated as the dividing line more than any document is.
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How is it done in China?
Mainland China's Civil Code does not treat engagement as a legal relationship; the voluntariness of marriage is an express principle, and a betrothal creates no obligation to marry. What actually generates disputes in practice is the bride price: courts address the question of its return where the marriage was not concluded, or was concluded and ended in divorce after a short time, under the applicable rules. So in mainland China the legal weight of 'engagement' does not sit in the promise itself but in the property that moves with it. In mainland China, therefore, what an engagement actually turns on is where the money and goods end up, not whether the promise can be enforced.
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How is it done in Indonesia?
Engagement in Indonesia — the lamaran or khitbah — is the occasion at which one family formally asks and the other formally accepts, usually held at home and accompanied by seserahan, a full set of gifts prepared for the other side. The engagement is not marriage in law; what the law requires is the registration that follows. At community level, though, the relationship is publicly recognised from the lamaran onward. Since the 2019 amendment, the minimum marriage age is nineteen for everyone. In Indonesia, therefore, a gap of time sits between the lamaran and the later registration: community recognition comes first, legal recognition after.
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How is it done in India?
Engagement in India generally follows each community's personal law and custom, and the form varies widely: exchanging rings, exchanging gifts, a formal announcement by both families, and in some communities a matching of horoscopes beforehand. The engagement itself is not marriage in law, but at community level it is often treated as close to settled, and the social cost of calling it off is far higher than the legal one. Dowry is prohibited by law, while disputes over it persist in practice. In India, therefore, calling off an engagement usually means dealing not with a court but with what two families and a whole community already know.
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How is it done in Japan?
Japan has no statutory provision dedicated to engagement: a betrothal is treated as an agreement between the parties, and whether one exists turns on whether there was an intention to marry and objective evidence of it — the yuino exchange, a ring, the two families meeting — with courts deciding case by case when a dispute arises. The traditional yuino has been visibly simplified in recent years, increasingly replaced by a meal at which the two families meet. Since the 2022 Civil Code amendment, the minimum marriage age is eighteen for everyone. A betrothal in Japan is therefore closer to a set of facts recognised after the event than to a document signed in advance.
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How is it done in Taiwan?
Engagement in Taiwan is a legal betrothal. Since the 2021 amendment, in force from 2023, the age is seventeen for engagement and eighteen for marriage, the same for everyone. The decisive provision is Article 975 of the Civil Code: performance of a betrothal cannot be compelled — even after an engagement, one party cannot sue to force the marriage, only to claim damages. So engagement in Taiwan carries considerable ceremonial weight, with the formal proposal, the betrothal gifts and the ceremony, while the law deliberately leaves a way out. Disputes over betrothal gifts are therefore handled in Taiwan as claims for return, not as demands that the other party marry.
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How is it done in United States?
The United States has no national institution of betrothal, and an engagement generally creates no enforceable obligation to marry. Suits for breach of promise to marry existed historically and have been abolished in most states. What still reaches the courts is the ring: whether an engagement ring must be returned after a break-up is decided differently state by state — some treat it as a conditional gift, some look at who ended it. So in the United States the legal question of engagement is usually reduced to a question about one object. An American engagement therefore carries almost nothing in law, and all of its actual weight sits socially: the announcement, the photographs, the party.
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