Readers join the diamond debate:
A marriage is fundamentally about the two people getting married. Their choice of engagement ring will reflect their shared values – whether it’s a giant diamond, an heirloom, a tattooed ring, or no ring at all.
When I proposed to my wife, I did it with my great-grandmother’s engagement ring, a family heirloom. A couple of years later, her mom gave her a ring with a large smoked diamond, and my wife was itching for a much bigger diamond, so she began wearing that ring instead. It always caused a bit of conflict between us – I even offered to buy her a ring with a bigger diamond – but she loved the ring from her mom and wore it all the time. The only time she would switch back was when my parents were in town visiting.
Fourteen years later, we’re now divorced. Not because of the ring, but the ring perfectly illustrated our disconnect.
Another:
Back in the early 1980s, I told my then-boyfriend that I didn’t want a diamond engagement ring. I’m not a diamond kind of gal; I didn’t want the flash or to spend money we could be saving for a down payment on a house. Plus, it was the height of anti-apartheid boycotting of the diamond industry. After a few months of this, my boyfriend angrily replied that he wanted to have the pleasure of giving me a ring, of having me ooh and ahh and show it to my friends.
In the end it all worked out, because his parents gave him a family diamond ring. It took me a good part of a year – long after we were married – to get used to having what felt like an enormous Bat Signal on my left hand.
Many more stories after the jump:
As a guy, I have to say the problem for me is the utility argument.
Other than being shiny, a ring is useless. (Yes, the symbol of marriage has to be portable – if you believe a symbol to ward off now-unwanted suitors is even necessary today.) My current girlfriend says she has no interest in getting a big ring. She would rather get something cheap for her finger so we could save for a mortgage down payment or splurge on something that we’d actually get use from, like a huge TV or a vacation. The whole thing just feels very retrosexual anyway.
Another is on the same page:
My favorite engagement-ring story involves my BFF. Her now-husband is a by-the-book kind of guy; he saved up that two months salary before asking her to go ring shopping. So they shopped and they shopped and they shopped. She hated everything. It was all so stereotypical, trendy, conventional – not her.
Then one day they were at the mall and walked by a Fire & Ice store. There, in the window, was a little gold and opal thing, and boom – she fell for it. It cost $75. So here was her fiancé, with $2,000 saved up and nowhere to spend it. What did he do? He bought her an engagement MacBook Pro. Best idea ever for an aspiring writer.
Another:
A friend of mine mentioned that a diamond ring was important to him not because his fiancée wanted one – I don’t think she cared – but because of the stability and seriousness it signified to her friends and somewhat traditional family. He was in the US on a J-1 Visa, so he had a bit of an uphill battle in that regard. I’d always felt rather self-righteous in my disdain for Big Diamond and its supporters, so his story was an eye-opener for me.
Another:
The diamond engagement ring is so cultural. My husband is Swedish, and I’m American. Wedding rings in Sweden tend to be very non-ostentatious, both for men and women, but he bought me a beautiful engagement ring. It’s an old ring, from a vintage jewelry dealer – a lovely Art Deco style, not too big, perfect in style for me. Swedes just do not do fine jewelry – and I am no stranger to Swedish culture, having lived there and become fluent in the language. But that my husband bought this ring for me meant the world. He loved me enough to do it my culture’s way.
Another:
My husband purchased my engagement ring in our last year of college while he put himself through school. He worked long hours at a menial job to be able to purchase the ring. Now, 20 years later, we’re both successful in our careers and he has wanted to replace it with a larger diamond. I’ve refused, because I didn’t marry him for how large a rock he could buy for me. If it’s about the status, I have my own money, thanks.
I know it sounds sappy, but seeing the not-huge-but-beautiful ring on my finger every day reminds me of what it felt like to be so young and in love – when we didn’t have much money, but we did have each other. It’s one of the many things that makes me fall for him over and over again. It’s not about the diamond; it’s about the commitment the diamond represents.
And another:
My rockhound husband has always argued that diamonds are extremely common and, as the old Atlantic piece says, manipulated by De Beers and others to create and manage demand. He wanted to give me a benitoite wedding ring instead. Benitoite is a sapphire-like dark blue stone that fluoresces under lights. “Sell it to me,” I said. He explained that it wasn’t a blood gem, as diamonds mostly are, and that it came from just one mine in California, making it very rare. (That mine is now closed.) He also said that benitoite is a titanium-related mineral, and at the time, he was doing titanium chemistry in the lab. I was sold. I love having something truly ours, truly special.
Another unconventional item:
When I decided to propose to my now-wife, I struggled briefly with how to do it exactly. I knew that she wouldn’t want a diamond and I didn’t quite know where to begin on choosing a ring with a different kind of stone. And if I got one she didn’t like she’d be too sweet to tell me it was ugly and she’d have been forced to wear it. And even if I did get the ring right, what if I got the wrong size? The moment would have been ruined if it were too small, and she didn’t wear any other rings for me to use as a gauge. And so I decided to just throw the entire ring idea out the window and I took a chance with a necklace. It was simple: just a thin chain with a large ring on it (so I managed to incorporate it somehow.) She loved it. She wears it on special occasions and opts for her simple gold wedding band alone on her ring finger.
One more reader:
When my husband proposed to me, it wasn’t much of a surprise since we’d already been together for seven years. What did surprise me, though, was the shiny diamond ring he pulled out of his pocket. I knew he couldn’t afford anything like it. I’m not even sure what I said first: “Yes” or “Where did you get that ring?!” Turns out, it was his mother’s – she had given to him many months before and he had somehow kept it hidden. His father had died a few years earlier and she felt like she was ready to pass it on to her oldest son.
Once I got over the initial excitement of being engaged, I soon realized I didn’t really like the ring. I just wasn’t my style, not ever something I’d look at twice in a store. It is gold and I prefer silver. It’s sort of a gaudy design. It’s not even that big, but it kept getting caught on everything. And, quite simply, it felt like someone else’s. It felt unfair, like I got cheated out of my dream ring and had to settle for someone’s hand-me-down. The sentiment of it being so important to the family was somewhat lost on me at that time in my life.
We’ve been married for more than 10 years now and I’ve gotten used to the ring, settled into a relationship with it that is not unlike my marriage itself. New love is shiny and sparkly and unexpected. Then the newness wears off and you wonder what you’ve gotten yourself into – what you are stuck with for the rest of your life. You start seeing all the things that irritate you. Then that settles down and you start to get comfortable, learn to live with what you’ve been given, and see joy in it. I’m looking at the ring now as I type and I see a long, intricate history there. For better or worse, I’ve made it my own.
The Dish 