> The purpose of the signature is to create an artifact that demonstrates the signatory’s acceptance. This sentence is correct but subtly conflates two element

> The purpose of the signature is to create an artifact that demonstrates the signatory’s acceptance. This sentence is correct but subtly conflates two elements, essentially contained in the respective words "signatory’s" and "acceptance": * It proves the signatory's identity i.e. it was this person that agreed to the contract rather than some other person. * It proves actual agreement i.e. this wasn't just a draft contract that we were still in the process of negotiating, but the final contract we had settled on. If it came to court and the first one, identity, was in dispute then a signature is fairly unlikely to resolve that, at least on its own. But if the second point was in dispute "yeah I know I said that but it was conditional on blah blah other thing" then a signature on a contract makes that much harder to argue. The second one is very similar to what the parent comment said: the fact the signatory went through the ritual shows that they understood they were actually agreeing to precisely those conditions.