Teen Sues Man for Breaching a Marriage Promise He Made

A promise is a credit! A lady in Bulawayo known as Rufaro Muchibwa (18) took her heartbreak to court where she’s now demanding $5 000 as compensation for breach of promise to marry by her ex-lover Handsome Mugavazi (28)

According to court papers, Muchibwa and Mugavazi met in 2015 when she was doing Form 4 studies.

In November that year, Mugavazi allegedly seduced Muchibwa who was a virgin and they had sex and he later promised to marry her.

In January 2016, while Muchibwa was doing Lower Sixth, Mugavazi asked her to stay with him as his wife.

She agreed and even dropped out of school.

The defendant then told the plaintiff that he was no longer interested in her and he started seeing other girls prompting her to go back to her parents.

Through her lawyer, the lady claimed that she suffered emotionally following the breach.

“The defendant seduced and breached the promise to marry the plaintiff causing the plaintiff to suffer emotionally, embarrassment of being used as a spouse under the pretext that they were going to wed. Due to the seduction and the breach to marry by the defendant, the plaintiff is claiming damages in the sum of $2 500 and sentimental damages for breach of promise to marry in the sum of $2 500,” read the submissions.

In his defense, through his lawyer, the man told the court that the plaintiff was not wife material as he had caught her on several occasions cheating on him.

” do not dispute that I had promised to marry her, but I later realised she is not wife material as she was cheating on me with other men. At some point I found her talking on the phone, and when I demanded to see the phone number of the person she was talking to, she chewed the sim card. I also found nude pictures of a man in her phone and she never gave a satisfactory explanation. She had also sent the same man her nude pictures,” read the defense statement.

The court magistrate dismissed the matter on the basis that the defendant had customarily paid $500 for damages.

“The defendant had paid $500 for damages to the plaintiff’s family, therefore to claim again will cause unjust enrichment to the plaintiff. The breach of promise to marry does not stand because the defendant had a just cause to repudiate the promise as plaintiff is of loose morals,” said the magistrate.