August 5, 2013 • 37 mins
Betrothed men and women have exchanged rings for centuries, but women receiving diamonds is a 20th-century invention. Cristen and Caroline take an unromantic look and how DeBeers taught us that diamonds are forever and should cost two months salary.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to steph Mom Never Told You From House Stuff
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And last episode we talked about
the future of gay marriage and we realized what a
perfect segue into wedding season. Hooray, hurrah. It is August
(00:29):
and wedding season is officially in full swing. So this
episode we're talking about engagement rings, and the next episode
just to round out a wedding week to kick off
wedding season. Because of course, with stuff Mom Never told You,
there's endless fodder for us to talk about with wedding
(00:51):
season wedding related topics. So we're gonna kick it off
with engagement rings. Next episode spoiler, we're gonna talk about
bachelorette party s. Woot woot. But let's yes, well, let's
start on a classy note with engagement rings and diamonds.
Seventy five percent of American brides are wearing a diamond
(01:16):
engagement ring, and Caroline, can you guess how much the
average engagement ring costs? Is it two months salary? It's
about two months salary, according to a two thousand nine
survey from the not dot com the average engagement ring
costs five thousand, eight hundred and forty seven clams. Interesting. Yeah,
(01:40):
it's a lot of money to wear on your finger.
It's not cheap. Uh. So let's jump right in to
a timeline of engagement rings. When we started wearing these
pricey rings, what they symbolize, and what the deal is
with those diamonds. We touched on the diamond aspect a
(02:00):
long time ago, years ago in a podcast solely devoted
with diamonds, but we figured it's high time to revisit this. Yeah.
There is a long history of engagement type or betrothal
type jewelry that men present to their beloved everything, you know,
(02:21):
from ancient Egypt to Rome to Asia. Uh, just a
tradition of grooms giving brides some kind of essentially like
betrothal tag. Yeah. Although my my favorite of these are
called puzzle rings that appeared in the first century BC
in Asia. But one of the first recorded uses of
(02:42):
a diamond engagement ring comes in fourteen seventy seven with
arch Duke Maximilian of Austria who proposed to marry of Burgundy. Yeah,
and the ring supposedly had thin flat pieces of diamond
in the shape of an M for her initial. How
(03:02):
sweet that does sound kind of sweet. I hope he
really did love her. Maximilian, Yeah, Maximilian and Mary. I
have a feeling that this was probably more of a
diplomatic union. But I like the idea of those little
diamonds spelling out her initial. That's true. That was at
least thoughtful. That was thoughtful. Um. But moving forward a
(03:26):
little bit there, there is some sketchy history of engagement
rings and things that we are not quite sure how
accurate they are. But one of them that's we're not
quite sure of, but that is interesting if it is true. UM.
In the eighteenth century, Puritans in America supposedly gave their
betrothed thimbles instead of rings, which they thought of as frivolous.
(03:48):
But eventually many women were like, I want to ring still,
and so those thimbles got sawed off to be actual
ring shaped items. And the Victorians were also bands of
romantic jewelry. We have things like poesy rings, and also
in the eighteen hundreds jewelry made from human hair. I
(04:09):
posted a picture of that on our tumbler a while ago. UM.
And they also used gemstones to spell out terms of endearments,
so a very strong connection between romance and jewelry. And
in the eighteen forties the engagement ring tradition, as we
think of it in a more modern sense, really takes
(04:29):
off in the United States. But at that time they
were given to both women and men. It's not until
the nineteen hundreds when the women only custom really takes hold. Yeah. Well, so, uh,
the push to give diamonds really got going in uh
(04:50):
towards the mid to late nineteenth century. In eighteen sixty seven,
the diamonds supplied got a huge boost when diamonds were
discovered in the Cape Colony in Africa, which is now
part of South Africa, and that that gets us rolling
on the the Beers Mining Company and a huge flood
of diamonds into the market. Yeah. Previously, diamonds had only
(05:11):
been found in Indian river beds in Brazilian jungles, so
they really were these precious gemstones that were often reserved
for wealthier people and royalty. But when Cecil Rhods founded
that the Beers Mining Company in eighteen eighty, it shifted
the entire industry, and six years later in eighteen eighty six,
(05:33):
Tiffany and Company introduces the Tiffany setting, which was designed
to maximize a diamond's brilliance by raising it up from
the band, as opposed to like with Archduke Maximilian's ring setting,
which had the thin flat pieces of diamonds set into
the band. Tiffany really put the diamond in the spotlight. Yeah.
(05:57):
And then moving forward into the eighteen nineties, we have
the appearance of affordable wedding and engagement rings in mail
order catalogs. So that's how popular and commonplace they were becoming,
that you could pick up a Sears and Robot catalog
and buy your sweetie an engagement ring. And then in
nineteen eighteen we have Cardier creating the Trinity ring for
(06:18):
Jene Cocteau who gives one to his lover, poet Raymond Redigo.
And it's still a traditional wedding ring in France. And
that's the Trinity ring is when you have the three
bands that inner lock. I think it's white gold, yellow,
golden rose gold. If I'm not mistaken, somebody correct me.
So even though at this point engagement rings are still
(06:38):
being given, it's still not the idea of giving someone
that huge rock. The whole idea of a man needing
to spend two months salary on a ring to really
prove his worth and really give that woman a ring
that she deserves, that she's gonna wear on her hand
for the rest of her life, for for the rest
(07:00):
of their nupshials, however long that might last. Um And
in the background, we have some legal changes that are
about to start going on, which is going to play
a big part in why we see diamond engagement rings
as the standard today. Now, there used to be a
(07:21):
law called the breach of promise to marry that allowed
women to sue for breaking off an engagement, because essentially
marriage was, you know, very much an economic arrangement. Women
would literally lend their hands in marriage. So back in
the day, there was a law called the breach of
(07:41):
promise to marry that allowed women to sue men for
breaking off an engagement because if that was the case,
there is a decent chance that she and the groom
to be would have already done it, and if he
walked out before they walked down the aisle, she would,
in society's eyes, be damaged goods how charming and so legally,
(08:03):
under this breach of promised to marry law, she could sue.
Now the guy could also sue as well, but usually
it was more a protection for these potentially sexually spoiled women.
I hate to put it in those terms, but that
was really how it went. Because economically, a woman who
had had sex before marriage had lost her quote unquote
(08:26):
market value. But in the nineteen thirties, states began striking
down the law, and by sixteen states, which at the
time accounted for nearly half of the population in the
United States, had made it obsolete. But what is happening
at the same time, Caroline, to maybe swoop in symbolically
and take the place of these breach to marry laws. Oh,
(08:48):
that would be diamond engagement rings were become a more
than just decorative jewelry or something that maybe just the
upper class or the royalty were giving to their beloved. Uh.
That initial search in diamond imports from companies liked Beers,
which we're about to get into, started in n So
(09:09):
all of a sudden, you know, states are striking down
this breach of promise to marry law, but women are
still getting as as all of these diamonds are coming
into the market in the US, they're still getting some
type of literally financial insurance against being left. Yeah, this
offers the brides to be a form of collateral, this
(09:31):
upfront financial insurance in the form of a more expensive
diamond ring. And this also is when we see that
cement shifted from men and women getting some form of
engagement rings to it just being a thing given to
the women. Um and as this is happening to this
(09:52):
is a boon for the Beers cartel because, as you mentioned,
we have the discovery of all of those diamonds in
South Africa around eighteen seventy, which endangered the investments made
by British financiers who had organized the minds there because
the market was flooded with all of these new diamonds,
and so these financiers were worried that the diamonds would
(10:13):
become only semi precious stones. Enter de Beers consolidated minds limited.
How they were able to do this, I don't even know. Well,
it is funny to think about. I thought the same thing,
like that is so shady. But I mean I feel like,
as we've discovered on the podcast so many times, stuff
was just shady back then. Yeah, could you offer our
(10:34):
listeners a rundown of the extent of this De Beers
diamond monopoly. Yeah. So basically, when all these investors were
so concerned about protecting their interests and their investments in
these minds, they decided to merge into a powerful single
entity in eighteen eighty eight, which was the De Beers
Consolidated Minds Limited. But in London they operated under the
(10:56):
name Diamond Trading Company. That's nice and generic. In Israel
they were known as the Syndicate. Across Europe they were
called the Central Selling Organization, which was an arm, a
supposed arm of the Diamond Trading Company. And in Africa,
outside of South Africa, they were disguised under various subsidiaries.
So like I mean, people only people who are doing
(11:19):
shady things need to cover it up, right, Yeah, because
they were creating this massive diamond monopoly which allowed them
to stabilize the price of diamonds because other commodities values
are fluctuating in response to economic conditions, because hello, what's
about to happen the Great Depression sending commodities prices down,
(11:39):
but the diamonds prices were actually increasing at that time
due to the power of that De Beers entity. But
in the late nineteen thirties, demand for diamonds was still
down in Europe, and so de Beers said, you know what,
we have a giant potential market in the United States.
(12:02):
But they also had with so many diamonds, problems with
quality and problems with some lagging sales. So bring in
the marketers. Yeah. Well, around this time, about three fours
of all the de Beers Cartel's diamonds were sold for
engagement rings in the US. But it is funny to
note that, like if you go back and look at
(12:23):
rings from this time, you know a lot of jewelers
were quoted in stories about this stuff. They are really
poor quality because people were not as concerned with quality, clarity,
cut all of that stuff we know is the four Seas. Now,
they just wanted a big old rock, and so quality
did suffer. But yeah, it's this is really a job
for marketing now. And so de Beers brought in agency
(12:46):
in dew Air, which stressed to the need to strengthen
the association of diamonds with romance in the public's mind.
Convince young men that diamonds are a gift of love
and convince women that they're an integral part of courtship
and and what our attitudes about engagement rings today, same thing,
that they are a gift of love that you have
to get it for your fiancee. And the woman has
(13:08):
the opinion, you know, like, oh well, if I don't
get a ring, like I mean, that's just part of engagement.
I have to get a diamond, right, and not just
any ring. It needs to be an impressive diamond ring
so that she can do the show off with with
you know, flashing her her rock for friends and family
and who knows, just strangers and grocery lines. And it's
incredible to think of how they were able to do
(13:30):
things like tap into this early celebrity culture because by
this point movie stars were really huge, and so they
would do things like have diamond photo ops essentially for
movie stars to show off their rings. They would take
out print and radio ads. But they still needed a slogan,
(13:51):
and in nineteen forty seven, copywriter Francis Garrity coined a
diamond is Forever, which Advertising Age named the slogan of
the Century. And I like to think of Francis Gearity
for Madman fans out there. I like to think of
her as a Peggy Olsen before her Day's funny because
(14:12):
she said that nobody was really excited about the slogan
when she came up with it, but that it eventually
became de beers like, that's their motto, that's their official slogan.
It's on all of their advertisements still well so by
the end of the nineteen fifties, UH the agency inw
Air reported to to Beers that hey are all our
(14:32):
hard work is paid off. Twenty years of advertisements and
publicity putting these diamonds on movie stars, putting out all
of these ads with sappy copy. It really had a
profound effect and an entire generation had come of age
thinking diamond engagement rings were required, and as I mentioned
the top of the podcast, today seventy cent of American
(14:53):
brides are wearing a diamond engagement ring. And the idea
of framing it as forever was really important because that
also had an impact on controlling the resale market of diamonds,
because you're not going to eventually pawn that diamond off. No,
you keep it and you pass it down in your family,
because as a guy, you're going to go out and
(15:16):
spend that two months salary on a rock impressive enough
to keep in the family, right, which is such a
I mean, it is a big con when you think
about it, because when people try to resell their diamonds,
you can never get anywhere close to the money that
you spent on it. Yeah, It's almost like buying a car.
As soon as you drive it off the lot, it's
(15:36):
value goes down. So engagement rings used car lots. I
hate to make that association, but it is kind of
there and just showing how savvy advertising and the beers
were in tandem in terms of making diamond engagement rings
a thing. They even were able to go into Japan
(16:00):
and do a similar thing. They did this with agency
J Walter Thompson in the sixties. Yeah, in nineteen sixty seven,
the year the ad campaign began, just under five percent
of engaged Japanese women received diamond engagement rings. It just
wasn't a thing. Um. But in Night one, about sixty
percent of Japanese brides were diamonds because they launched this
(16:21):
brilliant ad campaign. I mean, they had people in Western
clothes with Western cars, like the fanciest, most up to
date fashionable stuff in these ads, and you know, the
couples were just having a gay old time, um, and
it's like, well, don't you want to buy a diamond?
Don't you love her? Yeah, and don't you want to
kind of align with these Western values right on, get
(16:43):
get hit up, get with it, get a diamond. Um.
But once the Soviet Union at the time, moving into
Cold War era, finds diamonds as well, they start flooding
the market with a lot of smaller diamonds. So of
course the Bears in monopole form swoops in and it's like,
we're gonna buy all your diamonds because we don't want
(17:04):
you to dilute the market. But then they have all
of these tiny diamonds. So what does the beers do
Because they already have a corner on the engagement ring
with all the big rock So what do they do? Guys?
You know what, you need to buy her an eternity band,
right once you've been married for a couple of years,
(17:25):
you need to buy her some more diamonds. Have had
an eternity band for your wife for your anniversary. In
other words, help us get rid of all these Soviet diamonds. Please, Yeah,
we have a we have too many teeny tiny diamonds.
That we don't know what to do with. So just
as as a perspective on how flush with cash to
(17:46):
Beers was getting around this time, by nineteen seventy nine,
in w Air had helped Beers expand its sale of
diamonds in the US to more than two point one
billion at the wholesale level, compared with just twenty three
million back in nineteen thirty nine. And I didn't know, Caroline,
that the Beers and this whole advertising initiative is the
(18:06):
reason why we think of those four seas of shopping
for diamonds of the cut, clarity, color, and carrot, because
all of that was engineered to steer us toward bigger,
more expensive rocks. Is your diamond flawless? Well? It should be.
He obviously doesn't love you if it's not well. One
(18:29):
thing that a lot of listeners might find surprising is
that the notion of the two months salary is relatively new.
It's not until the nineteen eighties that the ad agency
starts introducing this campaign that set that two months salary
benchmark with the charming slogan, isn't two months salary a
(18:50):
small price to pay for something that lasts forever? That
was my vomit noise response to that, Um yeah, forever,
forever making people feel like they should go into debt
for an engagement ring. So the answer to why do
women where diamond engagement rings? It's advertising. It's all advertising.
(19:13):
Maybe a little bit of contribution to Archduke Maximilian in
fourteen seventy seven, but he really didn't start a trend.
It was de Beers and n w Aer's. It was
de Beers created this international need for diamond rings solely
that they could stay in business. Yeah, although in more
(19:34):
recent years business has not been as great for de Beers.
They they've actually been bought out for the most part
by Anglo American PLC, which has taken a majority ownership
in them, and the Beers has now focused their energy
away from the mining so much into retail stores, which
in I think it was two thousand five they only
(19:56):
had one storefront and now they've diversified that. I think
they have more than any stores, which have been very successful.
Because even even with all the controversy in terms of
blood diamonds and knowing more about these economics, the shady
economics of the diamond trade and how they have been
devastating for a number of local mining economies. It's put
(20:20):
a dent in the diamond industry, but it's still so strong.
We still buy more diamonds than ever before, and the
diamond engagement ring is still the standard. Yeah. I mean
it's crazy when you think about it, that a diamond.
There's no reason for a diamond to be as expensive
as it is except for just the people who control them. Yeah. Yeah.
(20:42):
But there is one major area that advertising for diamonds
has failed, and that is when it comes to diamond
engagement rings for men. Yeah, that that is just not
caught on. I mean in the nineties, manufacturers and retail
jewelers really tried to launch this concept, but it just
didn't catch on. It was it was too much associated
(21:04):
with women in romance, I think, yeah, and it was
once those breach of promise to marry laws were dissolved,
it just became a thing for women and for women
in relationships. As a side note, in nine five, taking
a tip from second wave feminism, uh n w as
(21:24):
did launch a Women of the World, Raise your Right
Hand campaign featuring quote unquote bachelor girls. Divil says, what
does a career women buying their own diamonds, but that
didn't take off, although I want to say it was
a couple of years ago. I read a trend piece
in the New York Times about women buying themselves their
(21:46):
form of engagement ring. Well, I mean I remember those
ads from not too long ago. They, I mean, they
did relaunch the campaign to sell those right hand rings.
You know, once that you know, your your engagement ring
might be very simple and fancy, you know, but your
or your right hand ring was going to be something
kookie looking. Again, it's just advertising, yeah, it's it's creating
(22:07):
a demand. Yeah. But but back to engagement rings for men,
because speaking of trend stories, in around two thousand and ten,
some news outlets we're trying to say that this was
becoming a thing because if you go to Scandinavia and
Scandinavian listeners, could you please confirm this for us, Mom
stuff at Discovery dot com so you can email us. Supposedly,
(22:29):
male engagement rings are totally the norm over there, but
over here we have to do things like called the
man engagement rings. Yeah, come on, come on, stop calling them,
stop stop making words up. Um, but a handful of
jewelers really did jump on this trend, and The New
York Times reported on it in twos They talked to
British jeweler H. Samuel, who had launched a line of
(22:51):
rings that allowed women to propose to their men, because
obviously women before this time, we're not allowed to. So
thank thank you to H. Samuel, and then the jeweler
Novorre and Washington State offers rings for men ranging from
about four hundred dollars to nearly three thousand, and History
professor Stephanie coons Out at Evergreen State College explained it
(23:15):
thus lee She said, it's a logical extension of our
increasing rejection of the double standard of sexuality. She's saying
things like male infidelity is becoming less and less acceptable.
You know, women are more on an equal footing with men,
so why shouldn't they be able to propose to their
male partners? And that absolutely happens. And there was a
(23:36):
brides dot com survey recently which found that forty percent
of women's surveys said that they would buy their fiances
on engagement ring. But I don't think that that is
ever going to catch on, not because it's a bad
thing to do or a wrong thing to do. I
feel like it is so entrenched, um in our society
that it's I just don't think that male engagement rings
(23:58):
are ever going to catch on. There are some couples
that do do it, and I'm not saying again, I'm
not saying that it's wrong, but these trend stories try
to make it a thing. But as long as you
call something a man engagement ring, no, no, I wouldn't
want a lady engagement ring. You know, it just it
doesn't it's it's an over engagement ring. Well, um, I
(24:23):
mean Barbara Rissman, who uh. She also talked to The
New York Times. She's the head of the University of
Illinois sociology department. She framed it as, you know, relationships
becoming more about partnerships. So both she and her fiance
wear engagement rings, but she was also married before. You know,
she's older, and she as part of the feminist movement
(24:45):
back in the seventies. She was like, I'm not wearing
an engagement ring. I don't want to be somebody's property,
you know, like, I'm already marrying you, what more do
you want? But this time around, not only is she
wearing an engagement ring, but her fiance is as well,
and her reasoning for that, she says, the feminist movement
and I have matured. Yeah, I don't see progress as oh, well,
now women can just propose. Yeah, sure we can propose.
(25:06):
It's totally fine. But I would see progress as moving
this idea of engagement away from just popping a question
to maybe just being a more of a conversation, you know,
not to say that the romanticized idea of someone getting
down on one knee and it's my boyfriend listening right now.
(25:29):
But you know what I mean, I think that I
don't I don't think that there's anything wrong with that,
but I think that progress is more just moving to
the idea of a partnership. I don't see anything wrong
with with both people wearing a ring too, But that's
I mean, that's exactly what Jessica Valenti's reasoning was. In
her she wrote a column about her marriage and proposal experience,
(25:51):
the fact that she and her partner entered into it
equally that they decided to create their own traditions and
they caught so much flak family and friends for it. Yeah.
It's one of the founders of feministing dot com and
one of the leading voices in most public faces of
feminism today. When she publicly announced that she was getting married,
(26:13):
Valenti did receive a lot of criticism from some feminists too,
who said, you're buying into this traditionally patriarchal structure. Why
do you need to do that? And she suggested that
you can enter into it equally and make your own traditions.
But one thing that she didn't explicitly talk about was
(26:34):
this engagement ring thing. I don't think there was an
engagement ring involved, but um in the New York Times
wedding announcement, she did say or quoted her as saying
that the only purpose of an engagement ring is to
show that you belong to someone and that your man
makes bank. And as far as the wedding bands that
they exchanged, they were just simple bands. But I don't
(26:57):
think there were any gems in them that they had
bought while on a trip to Rome, which that sounds like, yeah,
I want to go on a trip to Rome and
buy rings. Yeah. I also thought it was interesting that
this was a little data. This is from two thousand seven,
but a similarly leading second way feminist, Megan O'Rourke was
writing about this engagement ring issue in Slate, and she
(27:19):
talks about the fact that for diamonds, with the legacy
of the beers and the advertising, that it's really just
a sales gimmick, and also she calls it a big,
shiny no trespassing sign. But at the end of the
post she notes that, well, yeah, she wears an engagement ring. Well,
(27:42):
I mean, I've I thought about this too, kind of
only vaguely, because I'm in no danger of getting engaged
anytime soon danger, But what I like an engagement ring? Sure,
but me personally like, I don't. I don't want you
going out and buying me a bajillion dollar ring, please.
I well, I I know people who have, instead of
(28:06):
being able to save money to buy a house or
pay off their loans or anything like that, they go
out and they buy this huge rock and it just
puts them even farther back for when they actually do
get married. It's like, I would rather you repurpose my
grandmother's ring or my mother's ring or something like that.
And I partially say that because my grandmother gave my
(28:26):
mother a ring that's like giant I'm making a giant
circle sign with my hands, but whatever, or go the
Puritan route. Give me a thimble, get a nice thimble.
I can't even sew, so the symbolism wouldn't even be
a thing from me. But they've got the got the
top off. I probably like that. I mean, I think
it's I think it's funny. Or maybe one of those
(28:48):
Victorian era maybe a hair he could use to hair
to weave a ring. I could probably just go to
my shower drain and we've a ring out of that. Anyway,
no hair ring, Okay, I'm just I'm just saying. Well,
speaking of gender, there have been some studies on gender
roles and engagement rings. There was one called with This
(29:10):
Ring I v Wed Relating gender roles and love styles
to attitudes towards engagement rings and Weddings by Shirley m
Ogletree that came out in Gender Issues in and she
basically just surveyed a bunch of college students about this,
and the main takeaway from the study was that women
in fact, do not care about getting big, old bling
(29:31):
rings and having massive weddings more so than men. Men
and women were pretty much equally invested in the notion
of an engagement ring, and also the relative fanciness of
said rings. UM. But she pointed out there were two groups,
the the group with the gender stereotypical attitudes and the
(29:53):
gender transcendence group, which I just think sounds so lovely. Uh,
it sounds like there should be clouds um their their attitude,
the gender transcendence attitude with significantly uh correlated with the
idea that relationships should be more egalitarian, and there there
was a let less of a desire there for the
(30:15):
expensive engagement rings or weddings, whereas um college students that
she surveyed who had those more gender stereotypical attitudes regarding
male and female roles did both male and female tend
to want a more traditional, expensive wedding and engagement. Now
there's also another study examining the amount of money spent
on engagement rings by men is also very heteronormative for
(30:39):
the moment um, and they compared it to the age
and income of the women and they found that younger
women received more expensive rings also women with higher income,
which conformed to predictions derived from sexual selection theory, because
the idea is that younger women will get bigger rings
(31:02):
because they cost more because their worth In quotes is
higher because since they're younger, they are more fertile, et cetera.
But all of this said, the greatest predictor of the
price of an engagement ring wasn't so much relative to
the female, but more how much the guy made. The
more money he made, the bigger the ring that he bought. Which,
(31:25):
again this still though ties into that idea of well,
is an engagement ring buying a huge engagement ring so
much a symbol of one's love or a symbol of
a guy's income, does it? Is it again just a
bragging right? Not only that? Ay, this is this is
his gal, especially if he's not wearing a ring. Hey,
this is uh my betrothed. Don't don't even look, but
(31:48):
don't touch uh and look at how much I spent
on their ring. So he's like twice raised up on that.
So he could be putting his bank account on display,
or he could us be getting what he thinks he
needs to get for the fiance. Yeah, and we're talking
in very symbolic terms. You know, I don't I don't
(32:09):
think that that men are are even trying to parade
women around like cattle. But via going to Tiffany. But
this is why that that symbolism in the history of
it is why engagement rings are often met with disapproval
(32:30):
by by feminists. Well, I do look forward you mentioned, Uh,
you know, this is all very heteronormative for the moment.
I did try to look up stuff on engagement rings
among gay couples, but really there's nothing out there except
maybe tongue in cheek etiquette guides for who should propose
to whom? Should we both wear rings? Should only one
(32:51):
of us wear rings? That is something that I would
like to hear from listeners, you know, from from gay
and lesbian couples out there, like who have gotten engaged?
Gotten married? What did you decide to do? Did you
both wear rings? There're only one person wear rings? Because, um,
some of the etiquette out there is like, hey, do
whatever you want. Um. Gawker's only warning for men was
(33:13):
a diamond and crusted band on top of a wedding
ring is going to make you look like Liberaci. So
I actually want to hear from listeners about what what
they have done. Yeah. Michelle Court, who was the editor
of Here Comes the Bride, Reflections on Lesbian Love and Marriage,
said that lesbians have long worn matching rings. So they
might do that. But then again, all of it kind
(33:35):
of ends with make up your own traditions, which I
think is great that same sex couples have more of
a blank slate to create their own traditions without as
in the case of someone like Jessica Valnni getting a
lot of flak from family and friends saying you're not
where's the but you're you know. So, we want to
(33:55):
hear though from couples now about this engagement ring issue
because there is a not so bright history as to
why we wear diamond engagement rings. Guys, I want to
know about this issue of men wearing engagement rings too.
Would you wear one? Do you think that it's a
bit imbalanced that it's women who receive the engagement ring,
(34:18):
the idea that we should spend two months salary on
a ring, which again that is only a product of advertising.
Let us know all of your thoughts, mom se at
discovery dot com is where you can send them. And
we didn't even get into, you know, the Facebook photos
of girls showing off their rings and would you do that?
(34:39):
I'd probably do it. I'm very conflicted. Help me sort
out my my feelings about engagement rings by writing to
me and Caroline. Moms have a Discovery dot com. You
can also find us on Facebook and tweet us at
mom Stuff podcast. And now back to our lives, all right, Christen,
I have one here from Isaiah. Isaiah writes, as a
(34:59):
lover of genre fiction, I found e readers and eye
books of boone for a reason that relates to one
of your recent podcast I find the covers of genre
fiction embarrassing. Specifically, I enjoy sci fi, fantasy, and urban fantasy.
Sci fi and fantasy often have aggressively masculine covers, biceps
and barely covered boobs abound, and urban fantasy, often written
(35:20):
by women, have romancy covers. Think man with floppy hair,
artistic stubble what is artistic stubble? And boyish features looking pensive.
Now I can enjoy my vampires, wizards and ray guns
without having to explain to every passer by No, the
writing is actually really good, So thank you well. I've
got an email here from d also about our episode
(35:42):
on judging books by their covers. She writes, um I
have attendant, an annual event held by DC area book
clubs which feature African American authors. Book covers have come
up often as a topic of conversation. The authors have
mentioned the fact that they had very little say on
the design of their covers. The authors that Right Romance
had mentioned that they're publishers do not want to feature
people on the cover so that the book is not
(36:03):
pigeonholed into the African American Authors section of the bookstore
or even worse, Urban Romance. Authors that have attained a
level of success that would normally allow their photo to
be placed in the back of the book jacket or
told that this will decrease book sales. And also authors
with stereotypically African American names are encouraged to adopt a
pseudonym or to use an initial instead of their given name.
(36:27):
Several of the more commercially successful authors have rereleased their
early work with their given names instead of studentym. And
there are also mixed feelings within this community. Is so
whether an African American Authors sections should exist at your
local Barnes and Noble? Does this section do more harm
than good? Just some food for your literary thoughts, Yes,
some food indeed. Um, that was something that we did
(36:47):
not bring up, which is a race and ethnicity, and
that was something when we were researching that issue of
gender and authors and book covers and book marketing. That
was a conversation that came up saying, hey, yeah, would
this whole thing about women, but you know, it's even
worse issues for writers of color. So um, thanks so
much D for bringing that up, because it's definitely an
(37:09):
area that needs to be addressed. And if you have
an area that needs to be addressed with us, you
can write us a mom Stuff Discovery dot com. You
can write us over on Facebook as well, follow us
on Twitter, mom Stuff podcast, and on tumbler Stuff Mom
Never Told You dot tumbler dot com, and as always,
you can watch us four times a week over on YouTube.
It's YouTube dot com, slash stuff Mom Never Told You,
(37:31):
and don't forget to you. Subscribe for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Doesn't How Stuff Works dot
com
Welcome to steph Mom Never Told You From House Stuff
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And last episode we talked about
the future of gay marriage and we realized what a
perfect segue into wedding season. Hooray, hurrah. It is August
(00:29):
and wedding season is officially in full swing. So this
episode we're talking about engagement rings, and the next episode
just to round out a wedding week to kick off
wedding season. Because of course, with stuff Mom Never told You,
there's endless fodder for us to talk about with wedding
(00:51):
season wedding related topics. So we're gonna kick it off
with engagement rings. Next episode spoiler, we're gonna talk about
bachelorette party s. Woot woot. But let's yes, well, let's
start on a classy note with engagement rings and diamonds.
Seventy five percent of American brides are wearing a diamond
(01:16):
engagement ring, and Caroline, can you guess how much the
average engagement ring costs? Is it two months salary? It's
about two months salary, according to a two thousand nine
survey from the not dot com the average engagement ring
costs five thousand, eight hundred and forty seven clams. Interesting. Yeah,
(01:40):
it's a lot of money to wear on your finger.
It's not cheap. Uh. So let's jump right in to
a timeline of engagement rings. When we started wearing these
pricey rings, what they symbolize, and what the deal is
with those diamonds. We touched on the diamond aspect a
(02:00):
long time ago, years ago in a podcast solely devoted
with diamonds, but we figured it's high time to revisit this. Yeah.
There is a long history of engagement type or betrothal
type jewelry that men present to their beloved everything, you know,
(02:21):
from ancient Egypt to Rome to Asia. Uh, just a
tradition of grooms giving brides some kind of essentially like
betrothal tag. Yeah. Although my my favorite of these are
called puzzle rings that appeared in the first century BC
in Asia. But one of the first recorded uses of
(02:42):
a diamond engagement ring comes in fourteen seventy seven with
arch Duke Maximilian of Austria who proposed to marry of Burgundy. Yeah,
and the ring supposedly had thin flat pieces of diamond
in the shape of an M for her initial. How
(03:02):
sweet that does sound kind of sweet. I hope he
really did love her. Maximilian, Yeah, Maximilian and Mary. I
have a feeling that this was probably more of a
diplomatic union. But I like the idea of those little
diamonds spelling out her initial. That's true. That was at
least thoughtful. That was thoughtful. Um. But moving forward a
(03:26):
little bit there, there is some sketchy history of engagement
rings and things that we are not quite sure how
accurate they are. But one of them that's we're not
quite sure of, but that is interesting if it is true. UM.
In the eighteenth century, Puritans in America supposedly gave their
betrothed thimbles instead of rings, which they thought of as frivolous.
(03:48):
But eventually many women were like, I want to ring still,
and so those thimbles got sawed off to be actual
ring shaped items. And the Victorians were also bands of
romantic jewelry. We have things like poesy rings, and also
in the eighteen hundreds jewelry made from human hair. I
(04:09):
posted a picture of that on our tumbler a while ago. UM.
And they also used gemstones to spell out terms of endearments,
so a very strong connection between romance and jewelry. And
in the eighteen forties the engagement ring tradition, as we
think of it in a more modern sense, really takes
(04:29):
off in the United States. But at that time they
were given to both women and men. It's not until
the nineteen hundreds when the women only custom really takes hold. Yeah. Well, so, uh,
the push to give diamonds really got going in uh
(04:50):
towards the mid to late nineteenth century. In eighteen sixty seven,
the diamonds supplied got a huge boost when diamonds were
discovered in the Cape Colony in Africa, which is now
part of South Africa, and that that gets us rolling
on the the Beers Mining Company and a huge flood
of diamonds into the market. Yeah. Previously, diamonds had only
(05:11):
been found in Indian river beds in Brazilian jungles, so
they really were these precious gemstones that were often reserved
for wealthier people and royalty. But when Cecil Rhods founded
that the Beers Mining Company in eighteen eighty, it shifted
the entire industry, and six years later in eighteen eighty six,
(05:33):
Tiffany and Company introduces the Tiffany setting, which was designed
to maximize a diamond's brilliance by raising it up from
the band, as opposed to like with Archduke Maximilian's ring setting,
which had the thin flat pieces of diamonds set into
the band. Tiffany really put the diamond in the spotlight. Yeah.
(05:57):
And then moving forward into the eighteen nineties, we have
the appearance of affordable wedding and engagement rings in mail
order catalogs. So that's how popular and commonplace they were becoming,
that you could pick up a Sears and Robot catalog
and buy your sweetie an engagement ring. And then in
nineteen eighteen we have Cardier creating the Trinity ring for
(06:18):
Jene Cocteau who gives one to his lover, poet Raymond Redigo.
And it's still a traditional wedding ring in France. And
that's the Trinity ring is when you have the three
bands that inner lock. I think it's white gold, yellow,
golden rose gold. If I'm not mistaken, somebody correct me.
So even though at this point engagement rings are still
(06:38):
being given, it's still not the idea of giving someone
that huge rock. The whole idea of a man needing
to spend two months salary on a ring to really
prove his worth and really give that woman a ring
that she deserves, that she's gonna wear on her hand
for the rest of her life, for for the rest
(07:00):
of their nupshials, however long that might last. Um And
in the background, we have some legal changes that are
about to start going on, which is going to play
a big part in why we see diamond engagement rings
as the standard today. Now, there used to be a
(07:21):
law called the breach of promise to marry that allowed
women to sue for breaking off an engagement, because essentially
marriage was, you know, very much an economic arrangement. Women
would literally lend their hands in marriage. So back in
the day, there was a law called the breach of
(07:41):
promise to marry that allowed women to sue men for
breaking off an engagement because if that was the case,
there is a decent chance that she and the groom
to be would have already done it, and if he
walked out before they walked down the aisle, she would,
in society's eyes, be damaged goods how charming and so legally,
(08:03):
under this breach of promised to marry law, she could sue.
Now the guy could also sue as well, but usually
it was more a protection for these potentially sexually spoiled women.
I hate to put it in those terms, but that
was really how it went. Because economically, a woman who
had had sex before marriage had lost her quote unquote
(08:26):
market value. But in the nineteen thirties, states began striking
down the law, and by sixteen states, which at the
time accounted for nearly half of the population in the
United States, had made it obsolete. But what is happening
at the same time, Caroline, to maybe swoop in symbolically
and take the place of these breach to marry laws. Oh,
(08:48):
that would be diamond engagement rings were become a more
than just decorative jewelry or something that maybe just the
upper class or the royalty were giving to their beloved. Uh.
That initial search in diamond imports from companies liked Beers,
which we're about to get into, started in n So
(09:09):
all of a sudden, you know, states are striking down
this breach of promise to marry law, but women are
still getting as as all of these diamonds are coming
into the market in the US, they're still getting some
type of literally financial insurance against being left. Yeah, this
offers the brides to be a form of collateral, this
(09:31):
upfront financial insurance in the form of a more expensive
diamond ring. And this also is when we see that
cement shifted from men and women getting some form of
engagement rings to it just being a thing given to
the women. Um and as this is happening to this
(09:52):
is a boon for the Beers cartel because, as you mentioned,
we have the discovery of all of those diamonds in
South Africa around eighteen seventy, which endangered the investments made
by British financiers who had organized the minds there because
the market was flooded with all of these new diamonds,
and so these financiers were worried that the diamonds would
(10:13):
become only semi precious stones. Enter de Beers consolidated minds limited.
How they were able to do this, I don't even know. Well,
it is funny to think about. I thought the same thing,
like that is so shady. But I mean I feel like,
as we've discovered on the podcast so many times, stuff
was just shady back then. Yeah, could you offer our
(10:34):
listeners a rundown of the extent of this De Beers
diamond monopoly. Yeah. So basically, when all these investors were
so concerned about protecting their interests and their investments in
these minds, they decided to merge into a powerful single
entity in eighteen eighty eight, which was the De Beers
Consolidated Minds Limited. But in London they operated under the
(10:56):
name Diamond Trading Company. That's nice and generic. In Israel
they were known as the Syndicate. Across Europe they were
called the Central Selling Organization, which was an arm, a
supposed arm of the Diamond Trading Company. And in Africa,
outside of South Africa, they were disguised under various subsidiaries.
So like I mean, people only people who are doing
(11:19):
shady things need to cover it up, right, Yeah, because
they were creating this massive diamond monopoly which allowed them
to stabilize the price of diamonds because other commodities values
are fluctuating in response to economic conditions, because hello, what's
about to happen the Great Depression sending commodities prices down,
(11:39):
but the diamonds prices were actually increasing at that time
due to the power of that De Beers entity. But
in the late nineteen thirties, demand for diamonds was still
down in Europe, and so de Beers said, you know what,
we have a giant potential market in the United States.
(12:02):
But they also had with so many diamonds, problems with
quality and problems with some lagging sales. So bring in
the marketers. Yeah. Well, around this time, about three fours
of all the de Beers Cartel's diamonds were sold for
engagement rings in the US. But it is funny to
note that, like if you go back and look at
(12:23):
rings from this time, you know a lot of jewelers
were quoted in stories about this stuff. They are really
poor quality because people were not as concerned with quality, clarity,
cut all of that stuff we know is the four Seas. Now,
they just wanted a big old rock, and so quality
did suffer. But yeah, it's this is really a job
for marketing now. And so de Beers brought in agency
(12:46):
in dew Air, which stressed to the need to strengthen
the association of diamonds with romance in the public's mind.
Convince young men that diamonds are a gift of love
and convince women that they're an integral part of courtship
and and what our attitudes about engagement rings today, same thing,
that they are a gift of love that you have
to get it for your fiancee. And the woman has
(13:08):
the opinion, you know, like, oh well, if I don't
get a ring, like I mean, that's just part of engagement.
I have to get a diamond, right, and not just
any ring. It needs to be an impressive diamond ring
so that she can do the show off with with
you know, flashing her her rock for friends and family
and who knows, just strangers and grocery lines. And it's
incredible to think of how they were able to do
(13:30):
things like tap into this early celebrity culture because by
this point movie stars were really huge, and so they
would do things like have diamond photo ops essentially for
movie stars to show off their rings. They would take
out print and radio ads. But they still needed a slogan,
(13:51):
and in nineteen forty seven, copywriter Francis Garrity coined a
diamond is Forever, which Advertising Age named the slogan of
the Century. And I like to think of Francis Gearity
for Madman fans out there. I like to think of
her as a Peggy Olsen before her Day's funny because
(14:12):
she said that nobody was really excited about the slogan
when she came up with it, but that it eventually
became de beers like, that's their motto, that's their official slogan.
It's on all of their advertisements still well so by
the end of the nineteen fifties, UH the agency inw
Air reported to to Beers that hey are all our
(14:32):
hard work is paid off. Twenty years of advertisements and
publicity putting these diamonds on movie stars, putting out all
of these ads with sappy copy. It really had a
profound effect and an entire generation had come of age
thinking diamond engagement rings were required, and as I mentioned
the top of the podcast, today seventy cent of American
(14:53):
brides are wearing a diamond engagement ring. And the idea
of framing it as forever was really important because that
also had an impact on controlling the resale market of diamonds,
because you're not going to eventually pawn that diamond off. No,
you keep it and you pass it down in your family,
because as a guy, you're going to go out and
(15:16):
spend that two months salary on a rock impressive enough
to keep in the family, right, which is such a
I mean, it is a big con when you think
about it, because when people try to resell their diamonds,
you can never get anywhere close to the money that
you spent on it. Yeah, It's almost like buying a car.
As soon as you drive it off the lot, it's
(15:36):
value goes down. So engagement rings used car lots. I
hate to make that association, but it is kind of
there and just showing how savvy advertising and the beers
were in tandem in terms of making diamond engagement rings
a thing. They even were able to go into Japan
(16:00):
and do a similar thing. They did this with agency
J Walter Thompson in the sixties. Yeah, in nineteen sixty seven,
the year the ad campaign began, just under five percent
of engaged Japanese women received diamond engagement rings. It just
wasn't a thing. Um. But in Night one, about sixty
percent of Japanese brides were diamonds because they launched this
(16:21):
brilliant ad campaign. I mean, they had people in Western
clothes with Western cars, like the fanciest, most up to
date fashionable stuff in these ads, and you know, the
couples were just having a gay old time, um, and
it's like, well, don't you want to buy a diamond?
Don't you love her? Yeah, and don't you want to
kind of align with these Western values right on, get
(16:43):
get hit up, get with it, get a diamond. Um.
But once the Soviet Union at the time, moving into
Cold War era, finds diamonds as well, they start flooding
the market with a lot of smaller diamonds. So of
course the Bears in monopole form swoops in and it's like,
we're gonna buy all your diamonds because we don't want
(17:04):
you to dilute the market. But then they have all
of these tiny diamonds. So what does the beers do
Because they already have a corner on the engagement ring
with all the big rock So what do they do? Guys?
You know what, you need to buy her an eternity band,
right once you've been married for a couple of years,
(17:25):
you need to buy her some more diamonds. Have had
an eternity band for your wife for your anniversary. In
other words, help us get rid of all these Soviet diamonds. Please, Yeah,
we have a we have too many teeny tiny diamonds.
That we don't know what to do with. So just
as as a perspective on how flush with cash to
(17:46):
Beers was getting around this time, by nineteen seventy nine,
in w Air had helped Beers expand its sale of
diamonds in the US to more than two point one
billion at the wholesale level, compared with just twenty three
million back in nineteen thirty nine. And I didn't know, Caroline,
that the Beers and this whole advertising initiative is the
(18:06):
reason why we think of those four seas of shopping
for diamonds of the cut, clarity, color, and carrot, because
all of that was engineered to steer us toward bigger,
more expensive rocks. Is your diamond flawless? Well? It should be.
He obviously doesn't love you if it's not well. One
(18:29):
thing that a lot of listeners might find surprising is
that the notion of the two months salary is relatively new.
It's not until the nineteen eighties that the ad agency
starts introducing this campaign that set that two months salary
benchmark with the charming slogan, isn't two months salary a
(18:50):
small price to pay for something that lasts forever? That
was my vomit noise response to that, Um yeah, forever,
forever making people feel like they should go into debt
for an engagement ring. So the answer to why do
women where diamond engagement rings? It's advertising. It's all advertising.
(19:13):
Maybe a little bit of contribution to Archduke Maximilian in
fourteen seventy seven, but he really didn't start a trend.
It was de Beers and n w Aer's. It was
de Beers created this international need for diamond rings solely
that they could stay in business. Yeah, although in more
(19:34):
recent years business has not been as great for de Beers.
They they've actually been bought out for the most part
by Anglo American PLC, which has taken a majority ownership
in them, and the Beers has now focused their energy
away from the mining so much into retail stores, which
in I think it was two thousand five they only
(19:56):
had one storefront and now they've diversified that. I think
they have more than any stores, which have been very successful.
Because even even with all the controversy in terms of
blood diamonds and knowing more about these economics, the shady
economics of the diamond trade and how they have been
devastating for a number of local mining economies. It's put
(20:20):
a dent in the diamond industry, but it's still so strong.
We still buy more diamonds than ever before, and the
diamond engagement ring is still the standard. Yeah. I mean
it's crazy when you think about it, that a diamond.
There's no reason for a diamond to be as expensive
as it is except for just the people who control them. Yeah. Yeah.
(20:42):
But there is one major area that advertising for diamonds
has failed, and that is when it comes to diamond
engagement rings for men. Yeah, that that is just not
caught on. I mean in the nineties, manufacturers and retail
jewelers really tried to launch this concept, but it just
didn't catch on. It was it was too much associated
(21:04):
with women in romance, I think, yeah, and it was
once those breach of promise to marry laws were dissolved,
it just became a thing for women and for women
in relationships. As a side note, in nine five, taking
a tip from second wave feminism, uh n w as
(21:24):
did launch a Women of the World, Raise your Right
Hand campaign featuring quote unquote bachelor girls. Divil says, what
does a career women buying their own diamonds, but that
didn't take off, although I want to say it was
a couple of years ago. I read a trend piece
in the New York Times about women buying themselves their
(21:46):
form of engagement ring. Well, I mean I remember those
ads from not too long ago. They, I mean, they
did relaunch the campaign to sell those right hand rings.
You know, once that you know, your your engagement ring
might be very simple and fancy, you know, but your
or your right hand ring was going to be something
kookie looking. Again, it's just advertising, yeah, it's it's creating
(22:07):
a demand. Yeah. But but back to engagement rings for men,
because speaking of trend stories, in around two thousand and ten,
some news outlets we're trying to say that this was
becoming a thing because if you go to Scandinavia and
Scandinavian listeners, could you please confirm this for us, Mom
stuff at Discovery dot com so you can email us. Supposedly,
(22:29):
male engagement rings are totally the norm over there, but
over here we have to do things like called the
man engagement rings. Yeah, come on, come on, stop calling them,
stop stop making words up. Um, but a handful of
jewelers really did jump on this trend, and The New
York Times reported on it in twos They talked to
British jeweler H. Samuel, who had launched a line of
(22:51):
rings that allowed women to propose to their men, because
obviously women before this time, we're not allowed to. So
thank thank you to H. Samuel, and then the jeweler
Novorre and Washington State offers rings for men ranging from
about four hundred dollars to nearly three thousand, and History
professor Stephanie coons Out at Evergreen State College explained it
(23:15):
thus lee She said, it's a logical extension of our
increasing rejection of the double standard of sexuality. She's saying
things like male infidelity is becoming less and less acceptable.
You know, women are more on an equal footing with men,
so why shouldn't they be able to propose to their
male partners? And that absolutely happens. And there was a
(23:36):
brides dot com survey recently which found that forty percent
of women's surveys said that they would buy their fiances
on engagement ring. But I don't think that that is
ever going to catch on, not because it's a bad
thing to do or a wrong thing to do. I
feel like it is so entrenched, um in our society
that it's I just don't think that male engagement rings
(23:58):
are ever going to catch on. There are some couples
that do do it, and I'm not saying again, I'm
not saying that it's wrong, but these trend stories try
to make it a thing. But as long as you
call something a man engagement ring, no, no, I wouldn't
want a lady engagement ring. You know, it just it
doesn't it's it's an over engagement ring. Well, um, I
(24:23):
mean Barbara Rissman, who uh. She also talked to The
New York Times. She's the head of the University of
Illinois sociology department. She framed it as, you know, relationships
becoming more about partnerships. So both she and her fiance
wear engagement rings, but she was also married before. You know,
she's older, and she as part of the feminist movement
(24:45):
back in the seventies. She was like, I'm not wearing
an engagement ring. I don't want to be somebody's property,
you know, like, I'm already marrying you, what more do
you want? But this time around, not only is she
wearing an engagement ring, but her fiance is as well,
and her reasoning for that, she says, the feminist movement
and I have matured. Yeah, I don't see progress as oh, well,
now women can just propose. Yeah, sure we can propose.
(25:06):
It's totally fine. But I would see progress as moving
this idea of engagement away from just popping a question
to maybe just being a more of a conversation, you know,
not to say that the romanticized idea of someone getting
down on one knee and it's my boyfriend listening right now.
(25:29):
But you know what I mean, I think that I
don't I don't think that there's anything wrong with that,
but I think that progress is more just moving to
the idea of a partnership. I don't see anything wrong
with with both people wearing a ring too, But that's
I mean, that's exactly what Jessica Valenti's reasoning was. In
her she wrote a column about her marriage and proposal experience,
(25:51):
the fact that she and her partner entered into it
equally that they decided to create their own traditions and
they caught so much flak family and friends for it. Yeah.
It's one of the founders of feministing dot com and
one of the leading voices in most public faces of
feminism today. When she publicly announced that she was getting married,
(26:13):
Valenti did receive a lot of criticism from some feminists too,
who said, you're buying into this traditionally patriarchal structure. Why
do you need to do that? And she suggested that
you can enter into it equally and make your own traditions.
But one thing that she didn't explicitly talk about was
(26:34):
this engagement ring thing. I don't think there was an
engagement ring involved, but um in the New York Times
wedding announcement, she did say or quoted her as saying
that the only purpose of an engagement ring is to
show that you belong to someone and that your man
makes bank. And as far as the wedding bands that
they exchanged, they were just simple bands. But I don't
(26:57):
think there were any gems in them that they had
bought while on a trip to Rome, which that sounds like, yeah,
I want to go on a trip to Rome and
buy rings. Yeah. I also thought it was interesting that
this was a little data. This is from two thousand seven,
but a similarly leading second way feminist, Megan O'Rourke was
writing about this engagement ring issue in Slate, and she
(27:19):
talks about the fact that for diamonds, with the legacy
of the beers and the advertising, that it's really just
a sales gimmick, and also she calls it a big,
shiny no trespassing sign. But at the end of the
post she notes that, well, yeah, she wears an engagement ring. Well,
(27:42):
I mean, I've I thought about this too, kind of
only vaguely, because I'm in no danger of getting engaged
anytime soon danger, But what I like an engagement ring? Sure,
but me personally like, I don't. I don't want you
going out and buying me a bajillion dollar ring, please.
I well, I I know people who have, instead of
(28:06):
being able to save money to buy a house or
pay off their loans or anything like that, they go
out and they buy this huge rock and it just
puts them even farther back for when they actually do
get married. It's like, I would rather you repurpose my
grandmother's ring or my mother's ring or something like that.
And I partially say that because my grandmother gave my
(28:26):
mother a ring that's like giant I'm making a giant
circle sign with my hands, but whatever, or go the
Puritan route. Give me a thimble, get a nice thimble.
I can't even sew, so the symbolism wouldn't even be
a thing from me. But they've got the got the
top off. I probably like that. I mean, I think
it's I think it's funny. Or maybe one of those
(28:48):
Victorian era maybe a hair he could use to hair
to weave a ring. I could probably just go to
my shower drain and we've a ring out of that. Anyway,
no hair ring, Okay, I'm just I'm just saying. Well,
speaking of gender, there have been some studies on gender
roles and engagement rings. There was one called with This
(29:10):
Ring I v Wed Relating gender roles and love styles
to attitudes towards engagement rings and Weddings by Shirley m
Ogletree that came out in Gender Issues in and she
basically just surveyed a bunch of college students about this,
and the main takeaway from the study was that women
in fact, do not care about getting big, old bling
(29:31):
rings and having massive weddings more so than men. Men
and women were pretty much equally invested in the notion
of an engagement ring, and also the relative fanciness of
said rings. UM. But she pointed out there were two groups,
the the group with the gender stereotypical attitudes and the
(29:53):
gender transcendence group, which I just think sounds so lovely. Uh,
it sounds like there should be clouds um their their attitude,
the gender transcendence attitude with significantly uh correlated with the
idea that relationships should be more egalitarian, and there there
was a let less of a desire there for the
(30:15):
expensive engagement rings or weddings, whereas um college students that
she surveyed who had those more gender stereotypical attitudes regarding
male and female roles did both male and female tend
to want a more traditional, expensive wedding and engagement. Now
there's also another study examining the amount of money spent
on engagement rings by men is also very heteronormative for
(30:39):
the moment um, and they compared it to the age
and income of the women and they found that younger
women received more expensive rings also women with higher income,
which conformed to predictions derived from sexual selection theory, because
the idea is that younger women will get bigger rings
(31:02):
because they cost more because their worth In quotes is
higher because since they're younger, they are more fertile, et cetera.
But all of this said, the greatest predictor of the
price of an engagement ring wasn't so much relative to
the female, but more how much the guy made. The
more money he made, the bigger the ring that he bought. Which,
(31:25):
again this still though ties into that idea of well,
is an engagement ring buying a huge engagement ring so
much a symbol of one's love or a symbol of
a guy's income, does it? Is it again just a
bragging right? Not only that? Ay, this is this is
his gal, especially if he's not wearing a ring. Hey,
this is uh my betrothed. Don't don't even look, but
(31:48):
don't touch uh and look at how much I spent
on their ring. So he's like twice raised up on that.
So he could be putting his bank account on display,
or he could us be getting what he thinks he
needs to get for the fiance. Yeah, and we're talking
in very symbolic terms. You know, I don't I don't
(32:09):
think that that men are are even trying to parade
women around like cattle. But via going to Tiffany. But
this is why that that symbolism in the history of
it is why engagement rings are often met with disapproval
(32:30):
by by feminists. Well, I do look forward you mentioned, Uh,
you know, this is all very heteronormative for the moment.
I did try to look up stuff on engagement rings
among gay couples, but really there's nothing out there except
maybe tongue in cheek etiquette guides for who should propose
to whom? Should we both wear rings? Should only one
(32:51):
of us wear rings? That is something that I would
like to hear from listeners, you know, from from gay
and lesbian couples out there, like who have gotten engaged?
Gotten married? What did you decide to do? Did you
both wear rings? There're only one person wear rings? Because, um,
some of the etiquette out there is like, hey, do
whatever you want. Um. Gawker's only warning for men was
(33:13):
a diamond and crusted band on top of a wedding
ring is going to make you look like Liberaci. So
I actually want to hear from listeners about what what
they have done. Yeah. Michelle Court, who was the editor
of Here Comes the Bride, Reflections on Lesbian Love and Marriage,
said that lesbians have long worn matching rings. So they
might do that. But then again, all of it kind
(33:35):
of ends with make up your own traditions, which I
think is great that same sex couples have more of
a blank slate to create their own traditions without as
in the case of someone like Jessica Valnni getting a
lot of flak from family and friends saying you're not
where's the but you're you know. So, we want to
(33:55):
hear though from couples now about this engagement ring issue
because there is a not so bright history as to
why we wear diamond engagement rings. Guys, I want to
know about this issue of men wearing engagement rings too.
Would you wear one? Do you think that it's a
bit imbalanced that it's women who receive the engagement ring,
(34:18):
the idea that we should spend two months salary on
a ring, which again that is only a product of advertising.
Let us know all of your thoughts, mom se at
discovery dot com is where you can send them. And
we didn't even get into, you know, the Facebook photos
of girls showing off their rings and would you do that?
(34:39):
I'd probably do it. I'm very conflicted. Help me sort
out my my feelings about engagement rings by writing to
me and Caroline. Moms have a Discovery dot com. You
can also find us on Facebook and tweet us at
mom Stuff podcast. And now back to our lives, all right, Christen,
I have one here from Isaiah. Isaiah writes, as a
(34:59):
lover of genre fiction, I found e readers and eye
books of boone for a reason that relates to one
of your recent podcast I find the covers of genre
fiction embarrassing. Specifically, I enjoy sci fi, fantasy, and urban fantasy.
Sci fi and fantasy often have aggressively masculine covers, biceps
and barely covered boobs abound, and urban fantasy, often written
(35:20):
by women, have romancy covers. Think man with floppy hair,
artistic stubble what is artistic stubble? And boyish features looking pensive.
Now I can enjoy my vampires, wizards and ray guns
without having to explain to every passer by No, the
writing is actually really good, So thank you well. I've
got an email here from d also about our episode
(35:42):
on judging books by their covers. She writes, um I
have attendant, an annual event held by DC area book
clubs which feature African American authors. Book covers have come
up often as a topic of conversation. The authors have
mentioned the fact that they had very little say on
the design of their covers. The authors that Right Romance
had mentioned that they're publishers do not want to feature
people on the cover so that the book is not
(36:03):
pigeonholed into the African American Authors section of the bookstore
or even worse, Urban Romance. Authors that have attained a
level of success that would normally allow their photo to
be placed in the back of the book jacket or
told that this will decrease book sales. And also authors
with stereotypically African American names are encouraged to adopt a
pseudonym or to use an initial instead of their given name.
(36:27):
Several of the more commercially successful authors have rereleased their
early work with their given names instead of studentym. And
there are also mixed feelings within this community. Is so
whether an African American Authors sections should exist at your
local Barnes and Noble? Does this section do more harm
than good? Just some food for your literary thoughts, Yes,
some food indeed. Um, that was something that we did
(36:47):
not bring up, which is a race and ethnicity, and
that was something when we were researching that issue of
gender and authors and book covers and book marketing. That
was a conversation that came up saying, hey, yeah, would
this whole thing about women, but you know, it's even
worse issues for writers of color. So um, thanks so
much D for bringing that up, because it's definitely an
(37:09):
area that needs to be addressed. And if you have
an area that needs to be addressed with us, you
can write us a mom Stuff Discovery dot com. You
can write us over on Facebook as well, follow us
on Twitter, mom Stuff podcast, and on tumbler Stuff Mom
Never Told You dot tumbler dot com, and as always,
you can watch us four times a week over on YouTube.
It's YouTube dot com, slash stuff Mom Never Told You,
(37:31):
and don't forget to you. Subscribe for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Doesn't How Stuff Works dot
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