The engagement ring is useful when there is an asymmetric relationship in the earning potential of the proposer and proposee, and simultaneously a potential irrecoverable cost on the part of the proposee from agreeing to marriage. (Historically, high wager earner male, and child bearing years female - this historical antecedent has less relevance in contemporary times) In order to fulfill their economic role in proposing marriage, the engagement ring (or whatever token is used) needs to have two properties:
o It needs to be scale ably expensive, that is, there needs to be a way for someone who is making any range of income to find something that is "expensive" for them.
o It needs to have little to no resale value.
This allows the potential proposee to ensure that they aren't just one of many target (it would be expensive for the proposer to offer this token to many people) demonstrating long term commitment on the part of the proposer, and, at the same time, protects the proposer from "gold diggers" - the token, (e.g. Diamond Ring) - has little to no resale value.
Should Diamonds no longer fulfill that role, then other tokens may arise - I've often wondered whether expensive / lavish wedding parties could server this purpose.
Not necessarily. The whole expensive diamond engagement ring tradition is fairly new, and was created and adopted mainly in the US after a successful De Beers marketing campaing started in 1938.
I'm familiar with the history of the Diamond Ring in the United States - but what sustains it is not De Beers marketing, but the fact that Diamonds actually serve a useful purpose, despite their apparent flawed (no pun intended) properties.
What sustains the price is primarily the restricted supply which is tightly controlled. The long (and impressive) marketing campaign was only one part of the strategy.
If "restricted supply" was relevant to the price, then you would be able to sell a diamond after you purchased it, which, from everything I've read, you can't (unlike gold).
De Beers contribution isn't so much restricting the supply, as it is ensuring that once purchased, diamonds lose most of their value.
That's interesting. I wonder if the same opportunity available to Sotheby's is also available to your average diamond consumer (minus a reasonable handling fee). I.E. If I go buy a Diamond for $1000, And Sotheby's sells it second hand for, let's say, $750, could I sell it to Sotheby's for $500?
I'd be interested in hearing what mechanisms exist for your average consumer to sell a diamond. There is quite an active market for second hand Gold, and the handling fees are quite reasonable. My understanding, from everything I've read, is that such a market does not exist for Diamonds.
2nd hand diamonds are cheap as hell. You aren't alleging a store of value right? You're referring to their cutting properties in saws and other machinery
I agree with your signaling hypothesis for the earning potential. I personally think that weddings are already taken for other signals, though since language drifts, these signals could as well.
This is entirely anecdotal, but currently there are big, expensive and pragmatic weddings. These lavish wedding party tends to be signaling for the family in relation to others in a diaspora situation. As an American, I think our concept of "love" and Christianity have blurred the original point of marriages which have existed for long before our current Victorian ideals.
As an example: a friend of mine is ethnically Cambodian, and weddings in her social circle tend to be orchestrated on reputation as well as connection. IE, at the wedding participants will leave an envelope with the name of the clan who gifted it. Supposedly the bride and groom (or, possibly their family members) will spend part of the wedding accounting for the debts to neighbors. Her wedding, largely put together by her father, involved more than 500 people of a group that is not very populous in my area.
As she put it, lavish weddings were fundraisers for capital investments for members in a spread-out community. They are tabulated and redistributed to other newlyweds after a while, effectively socializing it.
What couples think like this? I understand the reasoning but none of my friends who get married concern themselves with such tokens. For people who do think of marriage this way (more of a contract), they can't afford (or don't value) diamonds like this at all. Instead, they give gifts of gold jewellery to the bride and her family as it does have value.
As such, this feels like post-hoc rationalisation of a particular behaviour, even though it sounds reasonable.
I don't think that is true. It is a common misconception among the general population that diamond rings are "valuable" and in times of hardship they could perhaps be sold to recoup their original value.
In the case of western marriage, where love, commitment are the emotional glues and financials are not outspoken diamonds are well positioned. But hope Wedcoin succeeds..Wedcoins ensure a cryptographically secure financial marriage bond. (just imagining:-)
I don't think women care these days about getting a diamond. They just want something pretty to show their friends.
50 years ago, it really mattered - a woman who moved in with a man before they were married was taking a big gamble - she'd lose her reputation if the marriage fell through.
OK, there's still some asymmetry in relationships, but there's no real asymmetry in courtship - women aren't really worse off than men for having had previous relationships.
Kids can be asymmetrical (single mothers and fathers have very different issues), but if you're talking about kids than a few months salary shouldn't be a major factor.
When I started dating my future wife, she gave me a silver Celtic knot ring of hers as a token of affection + a reminder of her because at the time she was working several hours and a plane ride away. It was an inexpensive, but loved, token as it was personal to her.
When we decided to get married, we approached several jewellers to make us a pair of wedding rings using the silver one as a template. Most 'commercial' and many small jewellers didn't have the skills or inclination to make the rings from scratch, preferring to suggest we bought a pair 'off the page', but eventually we found a local guy who'd just opened his first shop having followed his father into the trade after an 'old school' apprenticeship - he'd just obtained the right qualifications to be classed as a proper jeweller and when we explained our idea he was positively enthusiastic about the project, so he hand-pierced and finished off two Celtic knots in 9ct gold (they had to be low-gold content to keep the rings tough enough to stay in shape with all the knotwork holes in them - but the metal type/content wasn't important to us).
We were delighted, the young jeweller was thrilled that he had done a good job and also had a commission he could show off to other prospective clients in a photo portfolio. Apparently his father was also proud of his work.
After a couple of months we went to see the jeweller because we found the bands were pinching a little underneath our fingers and asked him if he would curve/narrow the backs; he replied that he would consider the work to be 'finishing off', so 'no charge', but how about he kept the small amount of gold he'd be removing. Fine by us.
So, 15 years on, we have two completely unique, hand made wedding rings that were crafted by someone with a real passion for his art. We have a 'story' and love them for what they symbolize and not because they hit a price point (in fact they were much cheaper than factory stamped ones).
> I don't think women care these days about getting a diamond.
Unfortunately, most of the women I know do care about getting a real diamond. Doesn't matter if the grown diamonds will be better quality dollar for dollar - it's fake and it won't do.
I think it says something about someone's character when they prefer jewelry [possibly] mined by a 12-year old slave at gunpoint, at great environmental cost, over jewelry produced in a lab.
Sustaining a cultural norm that causes children to mine for diamonds at gunpoint is not "guilt free". Your particular diamond is fungible. Diamonds should be as taboo as fur coats.
This is an interesting one. You mainly identify synthetic jewels by how they're the same as mined ones, but higher quality (bigger, no inclusions, better color, etc). That higher quality gets you a substantial drop in the price. I was amused to learn that DeBeers backed a campaign to convince people that "real" diamonds should have serial numbers inscribed within them -- let's keep natural diamond prices high by artifically making their quality even worse!
Another interesting aspect is that whereas natural rubies really are hard to find, and synthetic rubies are dirt cheap to produce... synthetic diamonds aren't all that easy to produce.
My fiance and I designed an engagement ring set around a large blue-green sapphire set in yellow gold; it's a stunning piece that suits her far better than a diamond would.
We both love it, but when she shows it off some people just can't get over the fact it's not a diamond even when they acknowledge it's a really nice ring.
I had an Irish Claddagh ring before I met my husband. It's a traditional friendship/engagement/wedding ring, all in one. Had it for years. When I got engaged, put it on the left hand with the pointing out (to show that I was engaged). When we got married, it pointed in. We spent $50 to replace the glass center with a synthetic emerald. I get more questions and comments on it than a diamond would (questions about culture, symbolism, etc). I personally don't like diamonds for various reasons, neither does my sister who got a blue sapphire or something like that. So I agree, women don't care as much about diamonds. Some want them since they are culturally programmed to, some like the storybook feeling of having a diamond, some get diamonds since that is what the men think they want.
My wife also didn't want a diamond, and we went with a synthetic emerald too. Technological progress and the triumph of humans over nature maybe isn't the ideal symbolism for an engagement ring, but it's better than blood and oppression (at least, given our views on marriage - others may disagree...).
I'm not sure I agree with your second point (that it need little resale value). Not only does the cost of the ring signal that the proposer is genuine. The value of the ring compensates the proposer if the proposer divorcees. Presumably, the proposee is signalling her genuiness because (s)he has an asymmetrically high cost associated with the marriage.
Without having zero (or close to zero) resale value, there is a risk that proposee is incented to leave the marriage with the ring and capture the value. If there is no value, then there is no incentive to leave. The incentive for the proposer is that they can't afford to keep purchasing rings.
o It needs to be scale ably expensive, that is, there needs to be a way for someone who is making any range of income to find something that is "expensive" for them.
o It needs to have little to no resale value.
This allows the potential proposee to ensure that they aren't just one of many target (it would be expensive for the proposer to offer this token to many people) demonstrating long term commitment on the part of the proposer, and, at the same time, protects the proposer from "gold diggers" - the token, (e.g. Diamond Ring) - has little to no resale value.
Should Diamonds no longer fulfill that role, then other tokens may arise - I've often wondered whether expensive / lavish wedding parties could server this purpose.