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It's a weird American thing. People here even take out a mortgage to buy these ludicrously expensive engagement rings.

wavefunction 7y ago
For our international readers, this is very uncommon behavior among Americans (taking out mortgages for a diamond ring) and it seems unlikely since it would require one of the two members of the marriage to own a house as a single person, which is also uncommon among Americans. Spending too much on a diamond ring is common though
- Merrill 7y ago
  It's not uncommon for engagement and wedding expenditures to exceed what could otherwise be the down payment on a starter home.
- mywittyname 7y ago
  It's very common for people to purchase engagement rings on loan. I had a friend who sold jewelry back in the 00s and he said it was pretty rare for someone to pay cash for engagement rings. Most people got 12-36 months loans. It's possible this changed between 09-13 because of the recession, but I'd bet it's very common now that the economy is doing really well. This might not be a mortgage, in the sense of being a lifetime payment. But it's a (semi-)secured loan.
dr_win 7y ago
Doesn't really matter how you spend the money. It is a signalling thing. The money must be burnt. With limited resources it ensures you can't repeat engagement with multiple women... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory#Sexual_selection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory#Sexual_selec...
- jacquesm 7y ago
  Not all women insist on $20K engagement rings. I would hope.
  - mywittyname 7y ago
    The peer pressure is stroooong for women.
  - tapland 7y ago
    Absolutely not. I bought a moissanite ring because my fiancé would never accept a diamond, but I wanted to give something that would be just as flashy.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
    No, not even close. In fact, I suspect that outside the people that programmers on HN and other upper-income cohorts hang out with, it's extremely rare. FWIW, my wife has a $600 artificial diamond ring that she picked out at Walmart.com. It's one of her most prized possessions (not because of the cost, but because of what it symbolizes) and she frequently points out to people how inexpensive it was. I distinctly remember her saying that if I were to pay 2 months salary for a ring it would be a sign that I was too dumb to marry. For that kind of money she'd rather have a new car.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      > I distinctly remember her saying that if I were to pay 2 months salary for a ring it would be a sign that I was too dumb to marry. Great attitude and totally on-point, responsible finances are one strong pillar under a relationship, if you blow through your cash on baubles you will eventually end up stressed.
    - ncmncm 7y ago
      That's fitness that can't be faked.
  - vkou 7y ago
    My wife and I spent $30 on our rings. No precious metals, no stones, just unadorned bands. We're quite happy with them.
- zelly 7y ago
  This is BS. You can't use biological evolution to explain high level cultural behavior. It also implies that females have no agency and just run on instinct like frogs. The real reason they want diamonds is culture.
  - ryanmarsh 7y ago
    You can't use biological evolution to explain high level cultural behavior. Why not?
    - cowpig 7y ago
      It's like trying to use molecular physics to explain the immune system. It's not just impractical; it's impossible to know enough of the variables to derive one from the other. In practice "evolutionary" explanations are constantly used to make something intuitively plausible for which there is no evidence sound scientific and convincing.
      - ryanmarsh 7y ago
        Perhaps, but in this case might it be true? There seems to be evidence in nature of something similar such as birds building nests and other costly activities to secure a mate. Also, love that I was downvoted for merely trying to understand someone’s rationale. LOL fuck HN. I regret all the time I spend here.
        Miraste 7y ago
        A more concrete reason it's not true in this case: diamonds as engagement gifts from men to women are a recent cultural phenomenon. For most of human history this was not the case, and there were/are large cultures where the tradition is a dowry instead (more or less the reverse) or nothing at all.
    - zelly 7y ago
      It's not science. Human brains are very recent in evolutionary terms. What a frog or a peacock does is a result of many orders of magnitude more time under natural selection than the age of modern humans. People guess that this or that behavior is because of natural/sexual selection and pass it off as science with no proof just because the word evolution was mentioned. It takes a very long time for something to become an instinct. Given how much human brains are capable of, I just think the most Occam's razor answer is culture and mimicry rather than somehow some {{uniquely human behavior}} having been important enough to survival to become an instinct across the board.
simonh 7y ago
Not just American, it's pervasive in Europe as well. France is a little unusual in that engagement rings are commonly made from non-diamond gem stones such as rubies, emeralds and sapphires.
- growlist 7y ago
  Weddings are becoming insane in the UK. I went to a friend's wedding a while back where they had a carved piece of glass showing the seating plan for the dinner. Cost hundreds. They divorced a couple of years later.
  - Loughla 7y ago
    The cynic in me would like to see a graph of cost of wedding as a percent of total annual income compared to divorce rates. I have a theory those two things are correlated.
    - bcatanzaro 7y ago
      Here's a study that shows some evidence for this: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2501480 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2501480
  - magduf 7y ago
    Wow, that's crazy. But it does sound like something middle-class Americans would do; they love spending $100k on weddings these days.
jeromegv 7y ago
And insurance!

For our international readers, this is very uncommon behavior among Americans (taking out mortgages for a diamond ring) and it seems unlikely since it would require one of the two members of the marriage to own a house as a single person, which is also uncommon among Americans. Spending too much on a diamond ring is common though

Merrill 7y ago
It's not uncommon for engagement and wedding expenditures to exceed what could otherwise be the down payment on a starter home.
mywittyname 7y ago
It's very common for people to purchase engagement rings on loan. I had a friend who sold jewelry back in the 00s and he said it was pretty rare for someone to pay cash for engagement rings. Most people got 12-36 months loans. It's possible this changed between 09-13 because of the recession, but I'd bet it's very common now that the economy is doing really well. This might not be a mortgage, in the sense of being a lifetime payment. But it's a (semi-)secured loan.

dr_win 7y ago

Doesn't really matter how you spend the money. It is a signalling thing. The money must be burnt. With limited resources it ensures you can't repeat engagement with multiple women... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory#Sexual_selection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory#Sexual_selec...

jacquesm 7y ago
Not all women insist on $20K engagement rings. I would hope.
- mywittyname 7y ago
  The peer pressure is stroooong for women.
- tapland 7y ago
  Absolutely not. I bought a moissanite ring because my fiancé would never accept a diamond, but I wanted to give something that would be just as flashy.
- HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
  No, not even close. In fact, I suspect that outside the people that programmers on HN and other upper-income cohorts hang out with, it's extremely rare. FWIW, my wife has a $600 artificial diamond ring that she picked out at Walmart.com. It's one of her most prized possessions (not because of the cost, but because of what it symbolizes) and she frequently points out to people how inexpensive it was. I distinctly remember her saying that if I were to pay 2 months salary for a ring it would be a sign that I was too dumb to marry. For that kind of money she'd rather have a new car.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    > I distinctly remember her saying that if I were to pay 2 months salary for a ring it would be a sign that I was too dumb to marry. Great attitude and totally on-point, responsible finances are one strong pillar under a relationship, if you blow through your cash on baubles you will eventually end up stressed.
  - ncmncm 7y ago
    That's fitness that can't be faked.
- vkou 7y ago
  My wife and I spent $30 on our rings. No precious metals, no stones, just unadorned bands. We're quite happy with them.
zelly 7y ago
This is BS. You can't use biological evolution to explain high level cultural behavior. It also implies that females have no agency and just run on instinct like frogs. The real reason they want diamonds is culture.
- ryanmarsh 7y ago
  You can't use biological evolution to explain high level cultural behavior. Why not?
  - cowpig 7y ago
    It's like trying to use molecular physics to explain the immune system. It's not just impractical; it's impossible to know enough of the variables to derive one from the other. In practice "evolutionary" explanations are constantly used to make something intuitively plausible for which there is no evidence sound scientific and convincing.
    - ryanmarsh 7y ago
      Perhaps, but in this case might it be true? There seems to be evidence in nature of something similar such as birds building nests and other costly activities to secure a mate. Also, love that I was downvoted for merely trying to understand someone’s rationale. LOL fuck HN. I regret all the time I spend here.
      - Miraste 7y ago
        A more concrete reason it's not true in this case: diamonds as engagement gifts from men to women are a recent cultural phenomenon. For most of human history this was not the case, and there were/are large cultures where the tradition is a dowry instead (more or less the reverse) or nothing at all.
  - zelly 7y ago
    It's not science. Human brains are very recent in evolutionary terms. What a frog or a peacock does is a result of many orders of magnitude more time under natural selection than the age of modern humans. People guess that this or that behavior is because of natural/sexual selection and pass it off as science with no proof just because the word evolution was mentioned. It takes a very long time for something to become an instinct. Given how much human brains are capable of, I just think the most Occam's razor answer is culture and mimicry rather than somehow some {{uniquely human behavior}} having been important enough to survival to become an instinct across the board.

simonh 7y ago

Not just American, it's pervasive in Europe as well. France is a little unusual in that engagement rings are commonly made from non-diamond gem stones such as rubies, emeralds and sapphires.

growlist 7y ago
Weddings are becoming insane in the UK. I went to a friend's wedding a while back where they had a carved piece of glass showing the seating plan for the dinner. Cost hundreds. They divorced a couple of years later.
- Loughla 7y ago
  The cynic in me would like to see a graph of cost of wedding as a percent of total annual income compared to divorce rates. I have a theory those two things are correlated.
  - bcatanzaro 7y ago
    Here's a study that shows some evidence for this: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2501480 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2501480
- magduf 7y ago
  Wow, that's crazy. But it does sound like something middle-class Americans would do; they love spending $100k on weddings these days.

jeromegv 7y ago

And insurance!