[Conor Friedersdorf]
Awhile back I wrote a piece against bridal magazines, but forgot to inveigh against a related scourge: the diamond engagement ring.
If I'm lucky I'll one day take a knee and ask an intelligent, spirited woman for her hand. It is a moment I'll cherish -- I'd be honored to offer some token of my esteem, even one that stretched my means. Should my beloved savor art I'd hope for sufficient funds to commission a painting. If she loves Yo-Yo Ma I'll do my damnedest to call in a favor. I can even imagine a woman whose passion is jewelry. She's studied its craft, is particularly taken by its aesthetic, and revels in its symbolism. I'd gladly purchase whatever diamond ring is within my reach for that woman.
As it stands, however, men are asked to believe that every single woman happens to prize an extravagantly expensive and utterly useless stone—perhaps mined by African children at the point of a bayonet—not because it's an opulent status symbol whose envy-inducing *bling bling* is forever, but because it's the most "special" thing that we can present her (or so the shadow people would have us believe).
In a way, it's bizarre that women given engagement rings don't respond by saying something like, "I'd love to marry you." (Beat.) "And thank you so much for this ring. (Eyes welling up.) I cherish the thought behind it, and I'll keep it forever if you'd like. (Happy tears.) On the other hand, we could take it back and use the money to spend several months together in coastal Italy."
But the culture -- which I absolutely don't think is the fault of women, in case that isn't clear -- seldom leads to my fantasy engagement. Instead the diamond ring thrives as a status marker disguised as a tradition, the bigger the spectacle the better.
And here lies an opportunity.
Here is what I propose: a charity, first marketed to Hollywood stars, that allows people to donate the stone from their diamond ring, directing the money to a cause of their choice. Let's say someone chooses an environmental cause. In return she gets a valueless green stone the same size as the diamond she gave. She puts the stone in the setting on her ring. She is thus able to show off her virtue in the same way she formerly showed off her vice.
This would work best if it caught on among Hollywood types first -- perhaps the same stars who drive around in hybrid cars. This is a half-baked idea, I know, but perhaps the core concept can be improved upon? I'm open to suggestions before I sucker one of my attorney friends into filing the non-profit paperwork for me.
UPDATE: See this piece on diamonds from The Atlantic archives.
You obviously know nothing about the resale value of diamonds, which is a small fraction of their purchase price.
A pre-nup in which you agree to give her $200,000 for each year you are married would make more sense. Hefner did this.
If you can afford only a couple thousand, give her some shares in the Puritan fund each year. If you can't afford this, maybe you are not ready to marry.
But you are missing the biggest point of the engagement ring which is that it is a status symbol that she can and will show to other women. It's one of the few outward signs of your chosen mate's prosperity left in our society.
The Ring, whether diamond or some other precious stone, is the first thing other women look at when you tell them you are engaged.
The Ring says basically, "look, I have chosen a mate who can take care of me, based on his ability to spend a large amount on a frivolous symbol of his love". You may think that's outdated, but it's a rare woman who doesn't want one.
Sancho,
I sure don't know anything about the resale value of diamonds. And I'm surprised that they depreciate. Why is that?
A friend said she wouldn't be impressed by a diamond engagement ring, but if a guy gave her a palomino quarter horse, she'd take him seriously.
Conor, you should read Jay Epstein's classic from the archives on why diamonds have little resale value:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198202/diamond
It also explains where the diamond engagement ring custom came from.
DeBeers would crush your puny non profit and destroy the career of any Hollywood celeb who participated.
Your non-profit misses the point; the signal is easily faked. If it catches people could start wearing cheap green stones. In turn this would destroy the value of the signal so no one would be willing to trade a diamond for it.
I like the idea though. Collect diamonds, give out worthless stones, give some part of the value of the diamond to a charity. I'm sure you can get the various environmental charities to bid on some service that your non-profit will provide. Coincidentally, the high bidder will be the environmental charity that gets your donations. I bet that service that you provide them (promotion or some such) will be worth almost, but not quite all of the value of the cash flow to that charity.
You could probably also resell the diamonds that have been donated as "conflict free" diamonds and "green" diamonds. You could probably sell them at a premium.
You'll be in that private jet going to fund raisers in no time. Good luck.
Ginna,
I think that's why Conor suggested having the ring reset with a cheaper stone. Then you still have the singaling effect of the original ring, but the new message is "My fiance cares enough to and can afford to spend lots of money on me, but I care enough about [insert cause] not to carry that wealth around on my finger."
(I just realized you may be responding to Sol, in which case, never mind.)
The Guy - that sort of signalling is too easy to fake. Don't buy the diamond, buy the fake stone, don't send any money to charity, claim the new message anyway.
My engagement ring cost less than $400. I consciously wanted a ring that would be worth less than pretty much any other woman's so I would never find myself feeling inclined to get into status comparisons.
When it comes to wedding magazines, I suspect that the editors are being driven by the need to find something new to say every month on a topic that doesn't change that much.
Tracy W, I applaud you. And Conor, it's not the culture, it's the individual women who are to blame. If enough women say to themselves and their boyfriends, "screw society, I'd rather the money be spent on a vacation/down payment for a house", there'd be no issue.
I can hardly believe it when I hear friends of mine who are ring shopping (or comparing experiences when we bought our now-wives their engagement rings) and hear people throw out the ludicrous 3 months' salary standard for what's appropriate. To me, you've got to be totally nuts to spend that much dough on a ring at a time when most people really need that money for other stuff like saving for a house downpayment.
I got my wife a piece of estate jewelry that we were both happy with as an engagement ring - sure, it's not as flashy as most of the contemporary rings you see on most women these days, but it's got character and is a nice reminder of how far we've come since then.
I have no engagement ring. Three years after we married, my husband and I spent $300 ($150 each) on wedding rings. We've been married 8 years now. We don't do Valentine's day and we don't do flowers. My husband would probably buy these things if it was important to me, but I just never saw the point of spending money just for the sake of spending money.
Dude, don't wait to get married if you want to give some money to charity. I always think it's extremely hypocritical when people announce some future event which is going to make them charitable.
I also think it's extremely juvenile when people diplay their own terminal uniqueness by denouncing some common social ritual as stupid and meaningless. Why not abolish graduation ceremonies, or birthday parties, or handshakes? That would be just as logical.
Just because something can be easily faked doesn't mean it will be. There's a lot less fraud in the world than there could be. A lot of security measures (not just the airports'!) are worthless or near-worthless, but they work anyway because too few people have the inclination and gumption to break them.
The idea that the worthless-stone thing will be gamed is not a good criticism. It would have to be very common before that happened - succeeding wildly beyond anyone's expectations before it fails.
I have no engagement ring. Three years after we married, my husband and I spent $300 ($150 each) on wedding rings. We've been married 8 years now. We don't do Valentine's day and we don't do flowers. My husband would probably buy these things if it was important to me, but I just never saw the point of spending money just for the sake of spending money.
This is precisely my wife's attitude, thank the lord. Her ring is a tiny, poorly-cut diamond solitaire that was worn by my great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother, in turn. Perhaps one of my sons will want it for his wife someday.
I also think it's extremely juvenile when people diplay their own terminal uniqueness by denouncing some common social ritual as stupid and meaningless.
This particular ritual--and the corresponding mega-wedding ritual--is vastly more expensive than, say, a handshake, and takes place at a time in life when money is usually at a premium. That's what gives the symbolism its power, I suppose, but it makes it dumber and more counterproductive than many other social rituals.
You're going to be seeing a lot more younger, educated women eschewing the diamonds in the future. My wife (27) and I each have simple bands, and her band was the engagement ring. Coincidentally, we did spend the money we saved on a trip to Italy. However, it wasn't so much a "we could use this money elsewhere" thought as much as a "why in the world would we waste money on a stone covered in african blood just so she can look impressive in front of acquaintances?" thought. Sure you may have to deal with questions from friends for the first year, but you would be surprised how many otherwise knowledgeable poeple just really don't know the history behind the ring as a symbol or as a product. Her not having a ring gives us a chance to kind of share that, in a tactful way, of course, considering the other party often has a 5k chunk of the stuff on a finger. Those that don't already have one are much less inclined to get one.
The internet, youtube, blah blah blah younger generation of ad cynics, it's already a people powered counter to the Debeers ad-machine. Watch it catch up.
Diamonds were rarely used for engagement rings until the late 1800s when Diamond Jim Brady and NW Ayer helped make them popular. The NW Ayer message was that upper class people give diamonds for engagement so you should too. At that time, pearls and colored jewels such as rubies, sapphires, and emeralds were vastly preferred by the upper classes over colorless, plain diamonds.
In 1947, DeBeers could easily sell diamonds larger than 3 carats but needed to find a market for a glut of small diamond chips and grit, all smaller than 2 carats. NW Ayer launched the "Diamonds are forever" campaign that captured the engagement market for diamonds amongst people who could not afford full size jewels. The campaign was so successful that even royalty started using full size diamonds for engagements.
Mass-market diamonds don't keep their value because there is a 100% retail markup on top of a 100% wholesale markup. The resale value of a diamond is about 15-50% of retail, depending on the buyer and the seller.
Drat you, Tsoraith and Arclight's wife. I am now going to have to get my husband to go out and buy a box of cereal with a free decoder ring so as to maintain my "cheaper-than-thou" status. :)
It's bad enough that Megan has turned into a vegan, but who let the anti-capitalist, anti-materialistic hippies loose in here? You sound like a sniveling, spineless wimp who has no prospects. But of course you're a free-lance journalist, so we shouldn't be surprised that you are attempting to rationalize your penury and utter lack of manners as an idealistic rejection of societies injustice.
Could some "rebellious" hipster journalist at least try to be freaking original? We've bee hearing about the rejection of diamond engagement rings for almost a decade - all those old Observer wedding announcements that mentioned the couple going to the Clay Pot for something special rather than the bourgeois/right-wing horror of actual jewelry. You're not special, unique, or smart. You're just whiny and unoriginal, casting about for authenticity and having to use a tattered yellow copy of someone else's rebellion to replace your lack of gumption.
I heartily endorse very large diamond engagement rings. Nothing's worse than finally being able to see a lady's microscopic diamond or alternative stone once there's enough light in the bar/restaurant/party - the large, blinding stone lets everyone know that you're affianced or married and not someone to try to pick up (Jerry Seinfeld excepted). A non-traditional stone just lets everyone know that you and your beau are not people to betaken seriously in business or life.
Ha! I've never been called anti-capitalist before, and I'm certainly not a hipster, but if the definition of "anti-materialist hippie" is someone who'd never spend a decade reading the New York Observer's wedding announcements, then I am guilty sir, guilty as charged.
On a more serious note, I always find it weird when someone acts as though critiquing any object sold on the free-market -- or in this case the shady international cartel market -- is somehow anti-capitalist.
It's supposed to be no-nothing critics of capitalism who don't understand the distinction between the idea that we ought to operate under a system of free exchange, and the notion that everything that happens under a system of free exchange is utterly off limits to being criticized.
Finally, "Nothing's worse than finally being able to see a lady's microscopic diamond or alternative stone once there's enough light in the bar/restaurant/party."
Nothing?!
What's to like about natural diamonds? They're still (mostly) being sold by a cartel (de Beers), they've got a pretty boring crystal structure, the sleaze associated with the mining is putrid, and they don't hold their value. As an investment a typical diamond is lose-lose all around.
The only use I can see for diamonds is to have two of them so you can manufacture a diamond anvil for high-pressure experiments. Having a gemstone out of metallic hydrogen, now THAT would be cool.... (containing it would be a problem, however.)
I heartily endorse very large diamond engagement rings. ... A non-traditional stone just lets everyone know that you and your beau are not people to betaken seriously in business or life.
Honey, if you're going to defend traditions, at least get your traditions right. The traditional way you identify an engagement ring is that it is worn on the ring finger of the left hand - that's the finger that's one in from your pinky. If you need a diamond to be able to see the ring in the first place I suggest getting contacts.
As a rule, one should only marry a rare woman (or man, for that matter.) Someone who sees engagement as an opportunity to announce themselves part of a new tax bracket is probably unsuitable as a life-long mate.
Tracy W— I, too, have an inexpensive ring. In our case, it's because it was pretty. I *like* opal.
A diamond ring is a signaling mechanism. As stated above, it allows women to signal to other women and to themselves that they have a man of significant financial means and that is willing to spend that money on them.
A diamond ring is also a signaling mechanism to men. It allows a man to realize that the woman he is considering marrying is very interested in displays of status access to his wealth.
Which, if you ask me, is an excellent signal to not marry that woman.
Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. If she wants three month's salary *before* you're married, how much do you think she'll want after?
LOL, Tracy. Actually, it's not my intention to mock anyone who wants/likes a nice ring for engagement. If you like jewelry, like the "tradition" etc, etc, go for it. I don't particularly care for jewelry, and my objection to flowers is a cost vs. impermanence thing, but this is just personal aesthetics. Some women like jewelry and clothes, I like books and computer games. I don't for a second think that makes me superior.
What bothers me isn't buying the jewelry, or flowers, or Valentine's extravaganzas. What bothers me is that so often with these types of gifts, what's important isn't the gift, but the cost. I love capitalism, but this particular type of materialism disturbs me. Especially when people allow themselves to go into debt (often the high interest credit card kind) to fulfill these expectations.
My wife didn't want anything to do with mined diamonds both because of the mining conditions and the obscene prices (I could drop the $3000-$5000 but we both had better ways to spend or save that money.)
She got a $5 engagement ring from a street vendor and we both have platinum wedding bands with no gemstones. The only pushback we got was from our parents. People our age just didn't care.
We got engaged during some of the publicity for the first generation of cultured flawless diamonds. My wife was listening to a call-in show about this and the DeBeers PR person said that women would accept nothing less than natural diamonds. My wife called in, said she was just engaged and asked where to get cultured diamonds. It was fun to hear him squirm.
That said, when 1-2 carrot clear, cultured diamonds start to get mass produced at a reasonable price, I might be making another trip to a jeweler.