I am here with you.

For me, what you say still counts, and a promise is a promise, and as the saying goes: a promise is a promise.
A handshake to seal an agreement also counted, and I believe that verbal agreements are still legally binding, but nowadays you have to be able to prove it, because it's one person's word against another's, so there always have to be witnesses. Nowadays, it's often the other way around. Even a contract, something that's written down in black and white and signed, is simply ignored, even by the law, which I find strange.
It's like my solicitor once said: there's a big difference between being right and being proven right, and by being proven right, she meant having the law on your side, of course.

My grandfathers had a gentlemen's agreement. Although they came from different cultures, they promised each other that if one of them died first, the other would take care of each other's wives. I find that very special. The grandfather who lived longer kept his word, although the widow thanked him for his help. She preferred to be free and could take care of herself, and she also sensed that it could turn out very badly. She was an intelligent woman who spoke many languages and had also studied, and indeed, she was proven right.

You are truly honest when you do the right thing, even when no one is watching.

I'm not sure I agree with this, because the truth also has many faces. What is true for one person may not be true for another, and therein lies the difficulty. Ask 20 people who were present at an accident what happened and they will all have seen something different.