Getting engaged is one of the happiest and romantic times of your life. Whether you have been courting for just a few weeks or a few years you are jointly making both a personal and public commitment to get married and to spend the rest of your lives together.

Getting 'engaged to be married', to give it its full title, has its roots firmly in the past. In days of old, the engagement period was a time to negotiate a 'bride-price' since the family of the women was losing a working member of the family and they had to be compensated for her loss. Centuries later, the situation was reversed with fathers paying their future son-in-law a payment or 'dowry' to marry off their daughter.

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