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The origin of diamond engagement rings was insurance: with the decline of "breach of promise" suits, the fiancée at least had something to sell as a settlement
by gumby 3y ago
The origin of diamond engagement rings was insurance: with the decline of "breach of promise" suits, the fiancée at least had something to sell as a settlement if the fiancé reneged on the promise of marriage.
All of that nonsense is long gone; the fetish for engagement rings is just a residual and empty metaphor. Good riddance.
My US gf was astonished and dubious that my relatives (in various other countries) didn't have diamond engagement rings, or engagement rings at all.
- friend_and_foe 3y agoNitpick, not diamond engagement rings. It was valuable engagement rings, it didn't have to be diamonds. The PR men created the diamond specific thing, and gutted the entire meaning of the tradition.
- gumby 3y agoGood point.
- defrost 3y agoIt's easy to fall prey to advertising: How an Ad Campaign Invented the Diamond Engagement Ring In the 1930s, few Americans proposed with the precious stone. Then everything changed. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/how-an-ad-campaign-invented-the-diamond-engagement-ring/385376/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/ho...
- vel0city 3y agoThis was really never true though. Second hand diamonds have been incredibly cheap compared to retail for a long time. Good luck reselling that engagement ring, the pawn shop has a box overflowing with them.
- pauldenton 3y agoWhy don't more people buy diamond rings at pawn shops?
- pyuser583 3y agoIn almost all states, courts will order engagement rings to be returned if the marriage is canceled, and the giver wants it back. This is likely a legend.
- gumby 3y agoThats exactly my point: the whole infrastructure of breach of promise, (somewhat) rarity of diamonds etc has been obsolete for decades, almost a century in the US. Any point of an expensive engagement ring has not had practical value in living memory. Just a residual, empty practice.
- rockemsockem 3y agoEvery aspect of a wedding outside of the government paperwork is without practical value. It's almost like the practical value isn't the only thing that matters.
- gumby 3y agoAnother way of thinking about it is that a wedding itself is a public commitment you’re making in front of witnesses (so in theory harder to back out of — not a bad idea as it provides some hysteresis to overcome transient conflicts). Meanwhile the government is simply providing some infrastructure as a service to people who want to make such commitments.
- pyuser583 3y agoThe practical value is from the expectation of permanence. This allows you to plan for scale.