A person is worth as much as their word. An agreement is an agreement — even without ten appendices and initials on every page in three copies.
With many people, you can make perfectly valid personal and business agreements with nothing more than a handshake and eye contact. Their responsibility and honor stand behind the words they have spoken.
But if we look at current events around the world, it quickly becomes clear that men — and, let’s be honest, women too — whose word actually means something are becoming increasingly rare. Campaign promises made with a full mouth and forgotten after election day. Business deals made with crossed fingers. Poorly considered commitments. Positions that change at the first shift in interest.
That does not mean the idea of being “a person of your word” has become outdated. It simply means that trust is becoming rarer — and therefore all the more valuable.
Keeping agreements consistently was already considered a cornerstone of human relationships in ancient Rome. The goddess Fides , the embodiment of trust, good faith, and honesty, watched over the moral integrity of the Romans and the respect for everything they had agreed upon.
Fides was not merely some abstract ideal, but a force that governed relationships between individuals, states, and even gods. The Romans believed that without fides, nothing lasting could be built — not business, not alliances, and certainly not a state. This is also the origin of the Latin principle pacta sunt servanda — agreements must be kept — which remains one of the fundamental principles of international law today.
In the broader cultural sense, a person’s word has always been a serious matter. It is not merely a statement, but a promise — or even a vow — carrying exceptional moral weight. As described in Britannica, it may be a voluntary yet sacred obligation , or an oath may further strengthen it . In either case, breaking it places one’s own integrity into question.
In closely connected communities, such as guilds, trading networks, and tribal societies, that damage was often worse than any legal sanction. Loss of reputation could mean exclusion from the community, without which an individual’s ability to do business, hold a place in society, or even survive could be severely reduced.
A man of his word is someone who keeps a promise when “no one is watching.” In Britannica’s dictionary section, we also find the phrase gentleman’s agreement , meaning an agreement based on trust that requires no formal legal enforcement. Reputation becomes a form of currency. When you break your word, you suffer social damage.
One interesting example is the Wall Street gentlemen’s agreements in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when financial houses agreed on interest rates, loan terms, and the allocation of clients without a single signed contract. The system worked smoothly as long as all parties were part of a tightly connected network. But once the market expanded and new, unknown players entered the game, the unwritten code quickly began to break down. Regulators had to step in, and written rules replaced informal agreements.
A similar principle of trust existed among Mediterranean merchants for centuries. Venetian and Genoese traders often concluded major deals on the basis of oral agreements, knowing that a loss of reputation could mean the end of their trading careers. In the ports, a merchant’s word was as important as his goods — if not more so.
In feudal Europe, too, the oath was the foundation of the political system. A vassal swore loyalty to his lord, and the lord provided protection and land in return. The system functioned primarily because the oath was understood as a moral and religious obligation rather than merely a political arrangement.
People often act out of calculation and self-interest, which is why history records countless broken promises — including some that were written on paper. One such example is the Magna Carta of 1215, which King John was forced to sign under pressure from 40 rebellious barons to avoid civil war. Ten weeks later, the promise was “broken” — or rather, the document was annulled — by Pope Innocent III, who sided with John and feared that such an agreement could threaten royal authority and, by extension, the authority of the Church.
Even so, after John’s death, Magna Carta survived. Today, it is considered one of the most important legal documents in the history of democracy. Its core principles — the right to a fair trial and access to justice — later directly influenced the American Bill of Rights and the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The common thread running through all these documents is a basic human need to formalize agreements, establish trust, and ensure fairness. That need remains one of the foundations of legal systems to this day.
So is a spoken word enough? When it comes to personal agreements — yes, often it is. But in business relationships, unfortunately, there is not much room for romance.
Oral contracts can be legally valid. However, for certain types of agreements, the law requires written form, and sometimes even a notarial deed.
The oldest known written contracts in history were created long before paper existed. Sumerian clay tablets from Mesopotamia , dating back 4,500 to 5,000 years, recorded sales, loans, and leases. Some were even sealed inside clay “envelopes” to prevent tampering.
Because only a few people were literate, but everyone understood that a serious agreement needed a physical form and protection against interference, contracts were often read aloud in front of witnesses and sealed to prove their authenticity.
The Babylonians, on the other hand, did not stop at tablets. The Code of Hammurabi , dating to 1754 BCE, was carved into a black basalt stele more than two meters tall and publicly displayed in temples throughout the Babylonian Empire. The code regulated nearly half of the most commonly used contracts: payments for services, transaction terms, and liability for damages.
It was displayed publicly so that no one could claim ignorance. The inscription on the stele explicitly stated that the purpose of the law was to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak. The code prescribed the death penalty, for example, for a robber who was caught. A physician who injured a patient with a bronze knife and caused his death could have his hand cut off as punishment.
The Treaty of Kadesh , by which ancient Egypt and the Hittite Empire intended to end a 200-year war in 1259 BCE, is one of the oldest surviving peace treaties. Versions from both sides have been preserved. The Egyptian version was carved in hieroglyphs on the walls of two temples of Pharaoh Ramesses II in Thebes. In contrast, the Hittite version, written on baked clay tablets, was discovered in the archives of the royal palace in the Hittite capital of Hattusa, in present-day Turkey.
As the Magna Carta mentioned above, however, the treaty unfortunately did not produce immediate peace. Hostilities between Egypt and the Hittites continued for years after it was signed. The spoken word would have been forgotten long ago, but the document survived for millennia. A copy now hangs at the United Nations headquarters.
Particularly fascinating is the example of ancient Egyptian marriage contracts written on papyrus as early as the New Kingdom, around 1450 BCE. These contracts precisely defined the property each party brought into the marriage and the wife’s rights in the event of divorce or the husband’s death. Under Egyptian law, the contract was usually kept by the wife, not the husband — a surprisingly advanced approach to protecting contractual rights, even by today’s standards.
In medieval Europe, due to widespread illiteracy, contracts were often confirmed with wax seals, family coats of arms, or special symbols. English kings used the Great Seal, without which a document had no legal force.
In China, contracts were confirmed for centuries with personal seals made of jade or wood. These seals were so important that losing one could literally mean losing one’s identity or property.
The need to write an agreement down and have it signed by both parties does not come from the assumption that someone is lying. It comes from the fact that one party or the other may later remember the agreement differently, that the circumstances in which the agreement was made may change, that the interpretation of the agreement’s content may differ, and so on.
The more important the agreement, the greater the risk. When money — especially a lot of money — responsibility, deadlines, and regulatory compliance are involved, it is simply not enough to say, “We understood each other.”
A word alone does not leave a sufficiently tangible evidentiary trail. That is why paper became such a strong foundation for a given word: both parties could confirm their willingness to honor the commitment, while the “bureaucratic ritual” gave the promise form, time, identity, and evidentiary value. A court cannot rule based on what someone meant. It can only assess what was actually written down.
As the world spins faster and faster, paper — which, as we have seen, replaced many different materials over time — eventually had to become replaceable itself. Time is money, and in an age of global cooperation, paper is too slow and too limiting. The longer we wait for a signed agreement to come back, the later we can complete the deal — and issue the invoice.
Today, the electronic signature ultimately helps ensure that agreements born from a given word are honored. Its legal effect is supported by e-signature services and strict regulation, led by the eIDAS Regulation .
Agreements are made faster and, more importantly, they hold. The electronic signature is the modern upgrade of the word and the honor of both parties.
A promise is still a promise — except today, it leaves behind a clear audit trail and a timestamp. The word is not disappearing. It is simply taking a form appropriate to the age in which people of their word do business.
Fides would probably be very pleased.
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