For a spouse content with the private knowledge that the hunk of blue glass on her ring is actually a sapphire (or for one who moves exclusively within the rarefied circles familiar with valuable gemstones) such a stone can serve the same functions as a diamond. And an engagement ring is a public announcement of attachment, and to some inevitable extent, of wealth and resources. It's not like placing a picture of your lover in a locket. "How interesting," people say, "is that your engagement ring? What kind of stone is that?" A ring is an inherently public display. The diamond tends to draw admiring glances, whispered 'ooh's, and the occasional, "Is that real?" The sapphire attracts a different sort of attention. Both women were delighted - the one because of the diamond's sentimental significance, the other because of the distinctiveness of the sapphire (and the sacrifice its value represented). The other gave a ring set with a brilliant and valuable sapphire. One took his grandmother's stone, which was respectably large but rendered nearly worthless by a subtle flaw, and gave it to his future wife. I know two brothers who solved the problem of the overpriced diamond in different ways. And buying it didn't enrich the villains at DeBeers.ĭiamond engagement rings are best understood not as a signal from one partner to the other, but from both partners to society at large. Unlike the shiny rock, the watch is not only handsome, it's functional, as well. He cried, I cried.and we were married six months later, during that brief period when it was legal for us to marry in California. Then I pulled the watch from its hiding place and said, "And so you remember that, I'd like you to wear this" and handed him the watch. I said a few romantic things about our life together so far, and then told him that I wanted to spend "every second, every minute, every hour and every day of the rest of my life" with him. I'd made a CD of songs that I felt fit a romantic occasion ("Jackie Wilson Said (I'm In Heaven When You Smile)" "Sweet Happy Life" "The Best Is Yet To Come" and several others) and had it playing as we sipped our coffee and looked out over the blue, blue sea to a palm-studded isle. On our second day out, anchored off a lovely cay, I arranged for breakfast to be served on our stateroom's veranda.
(He's a quintessential bear.) So here's what I did instead: I bought him a beautiful Omega watch and hid it in my luggage as we went off on a Caribbean cruise. Besides, a diamond ring would look downright silly on his hand.
First of all, I'm in the camp that shiny rocks pulled from the ground by abused, underpaid Africans is no way to signal one's love for another. All the in-laws are watching.Īnother reader, echoing many others, goes after the diamond cartels:Īs a gay man, when it came time to propose to my (now) husband, a diamond solitaire wasn't going to cut it. Although, let's be realistic, it'd better be most beautiful baling wire ring you can afford. Do that and the ring could be made of baling wire the metal and rock won't matter. My idea is that you choose a unique time, place, or circumstance, meaningful to you both, of which the ring becomes a symbol and reminder of that moment, be it grand, intimate, sexy, terrifying, or all of the above. I'm not a fan of the Jumbo-tron marriage proposal - it always seems more egotistical than cute - but if that's your deal, have at. Make it into a story that you will both love to tell, forever. One alternative to the ring-as-signal model would be making sure your engagement is as memorable as possible. As such it's little more than designing and using the most ornate branding iron you can. More importantly, though, it seems to put the emphasis rather strangely on "signaling," a message which might be partially for your mate (one hopes she knows that message already) but is really targeting anyone else that might see and/or desire her. Costly signaling makes sense as a reason many people give for buying diamonds, although I'm not sure it really works as a defense given all the options of costly things.