What is the Meaning of a Diamond Ring?

For Christmas this year, I gave Martha a diamond ring. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for quite sometime. Forty years to be exact. You see I never gave Martha a diamond engagement ring. In fact, at the time, Martha didn’t want me to buy her a ring.

It was October 1972 when I asked Martha to marry me.  She was visiting me in Lincoln, Nebraska, where I was in my first year of graduate work. My proposal was quite impulsive, and honestly, not well thought out. I knew I loved her and wanted to spend my life with her. Martha didn’t answer me right away; in fact, it was not until a year later that she asked me to marry her.

Looking for a diamond ring with Martha at the jewelry store got me thinking about the meaning of a diamond ring. Today, a man typically gives a diamond ring to his betrothed to symbolize their commitment to each other in marriage. I grew up with the image of the man kneeling down on one knee and holding up a diamond ring up to his sweetheart while asking, “Will you marry me?” Martha definitely didn’t want that.

I had thought that the whole idea of diamond engagement rings had been around for centuries. I did a little research recently that surprised me. The purchase of diamond engagement rings came into vogue after diamond mines were discovered in Africa in the late 1800s. In the early twentieth century, one diamond company, DeBeers, which had seen their diamond sales lag, started a national advertising campaign to promote the sale of diamonds. By the end of the 1930s, diamond sales were up by 55% (O’Rourke, 2007). From that time, until the middle of the 1960s, the sale of diamonds rose steadily. The widespread practice of giving a diamond engagement ring to one’s fiancée was the result of a well-thought out and carefully orchestrated marketing plan! Martha didn’t like hearing that.

As it turns out, something else also accounted for the increase in the sale of diamond engagement rings (O’Rourke, 2007). Women used to be able to sue their prospective husbands for financial damages if they reneged on their promise to marry under a law called the “Breach of Promise to Marry” law (O’Brien, 2013). Men couldn’t just seduce a woman with a proposal of marriage, get them into bed and then abandon them without the threat of some legal action. In the 1930s, many of these laws were struck down and, as a result, diamond engagement rings became a hedge against future husbands simply walking out on their brides-to-be. Sales of diamond engagement rings increased in response to the expectation that a man should provide a symbol of financial commitment for his future wife (O’Rourke, 2007). Martha didn’t like that that either.

In this era today, when men and women want more equitable and egalitarian marriages, the diamond engagement ring on the left hand of a newly engaged woman publicly signals the couple’s private commitment to get married. In Scandinavian countries, where children grow up in cultures that value equality between the sexes, many men and women wear engagement bands (O’Rourke, 2007). Two weeks before this Christmas, when Martha and I went into the jewelry store, we picked out the diamond ring for her together. For the both of us, her ring meant, “I love you.” Martha liked that. And she loves her ring!

 References

O’Brien, M. (2013).  The strange (and formerly sexist) economic of engagement rings.  The Atlantic.  The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/the-strange-and-formerly-sexist-economics-of-engagement-rings/255434.

O’Rourke, M. (2007). Diamonds are a girl’s worst friend.  Slate Magazine.  http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/weddings/2007/06/diamonds_are_a_girls_worst_friend.html

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