EN
The autonomy of the will of the parties is considered the most fundamental principle of civil law or private law, which manifests itself as the principle of freedom of contract, understood as a legally defined range of actions that allow the formation of legal relations. Freedom of contract encom-passes four essential features: the freedom to conclude or not to conclude a contract, the freedom to choose a counterparty, the ability of the parties to shape the content of the contract in princi-ple, and the freedom to choose the form of the contract. Autonomy of will and freedom of con-tract also apply to marriage. This is determined by the fact that declarations of entering into mar-riage are declarations of will within the meaning of the Civil Code, so the conclusion of marriage is a bilateral legal act, and therefore a contract within the meaning of the Civil Code. Under current Po-lish law, there is freedom to marry or not to marry. A feature of the freedom to marry is the ability to freely choose a contracting party. However, this freedom is limited, since under Polish law mar-riage is contracted between a man and a woman. In this regard, it should be emphasized that Ar-ticle 18 of the Constitution does not imply prohibitions on the introduction of regulations per-mitting both partnerships and same-sex marriage. The ability of the parties to basically freely sha-pe the content of the contract was, with regard to marriage, limited to the choice of name and conclusion. The freedom to choose the form of marriage has existed in Poland since 1998, when an alternative civil form and a religious form with civil effect were introduced. If, on the other hand, the marriage is contracted outside Poland, it is sufficient to observe the form required by the native law of both spouses or by the common law of the spouses' place of residence or habitual residen-ce at the time of the marriage.