How much did you pay for your wife's/fiancee's engagement ring?

[Piobaire]

Thanks, Cicero.

THREAD CONTINUES TO ******* DELIVER!!

 

[Milksteakboiledhard]

I bought my wife, my best friend, a loose diamond online. I picked out the ring based on a few notes she dropped over the years of our courtship - rose gold, no halo thing, and "tasteful". I don't blame her for dropping hints, I don't believe she's ever gone more than an hour without it on her finger. Oh, she also told me her ring size only to be off by a whole size (she said a larger size than she needed).

Does she actually love me, or am I being used?

Edit: Also, I spent my first "big boy" paycheck (read: I was nowhere near SF middle class at this time) on the whole ordeal.

 

[TheFoo]

I bought my wife, my best friend, a loose diamond online. I picked out the ring based on a few notes she dropped over the years of our courtship - rose gold, no halo thing, and "tasteful". I don't blame her for dropping hints, I don't believe she's ever gone more than an hour without it on her finger. Oh, she also told me her ring size only to be off by a whole size (she said a larger size than she needed).

Does she actually love me, or am I being used?

Edit: Also, I spent my first "big boy" paycheck (read: I was nowhere near SF middle class at this time) on the whole ordeal.

Oh, “dropping hints” is totally valid — it implies that she was not demanding any precise ring, she appreciates it’s a gift that ultimately you’ll make the decision about (as you are the gift giver), and she’ll feel lucky to receive it because you love her rather than because it fulfills a material desire.

In other words, “dropping hints” tends to suggest a hope, wish, suggestion, etc., rather than a demand, requirement, condition, etc. It continues to respect the fact that the gift is for the giver to give and not an entitlement or grotesque payment for services.

 

[Piobaire]

How does one wrap into "tradition" the thought this tradition was largely created in the 1930s for DeBeers, and that until the last 20 years or so, DeBeers had a de facto monopoly on the market? Their wholesale manufacturing of this "tradition" is arguably one of the best, most extensive, and enduring marketing campaigns in history.

De Beers myth: Do people spend a month's salary on a diamond engagement ring?

How an advertising campaign tried to dictate how much money an engagement ring should cost.

www.bbc.com

Prior to the 1930s, presenting a woman with a diamond engagement ring was not the norm. Even on the eve of World War Two, a mere 10% of engagement rings contained diamonds. By the end of the 20th Century, 80% did.

In the 1930s, at the start of the De Beers campaign, a single month's salary was the suggested ring spend. In the 1980s in the US, it became two months. One advert featured a pouting woman, a scarf, a finger, a diamond ring and the words: "Two months' salary showed the future Mrs Smith what the future would be like."

Another did away with the woman, the pout and the finger, leaving only a diamond ring against a black background and the question: "How can you make two months' salary last forever?"

 

[Jr Mouse]

“Grotesque payment for services.”

 

[TheFoo]

How does one wrap into "tradition" the thought this tradition was largely created in the 1930s for DeBeers, and that until the last 20 years or so, DeBeers had a de facto monopoly on the market? Their wholesale manufacturing of this "tradition" is arguably one of the best, most extensive, and enduring marketing campaigns in history.

De Beers myth: Do people spend a month's salary on a diamond engagement ring?

How an advertising campaign tried to dictate how much money an engagement ring should cost.

www.bbc.com

Oh holy ****!!!! Mind blown!!!!

 

[Piobaire]

If only that were a cogent response to this assertion of "tradition."

 

[edinatlanta]

If only that were a cogent response to this assertion of "tradition."

Yeah im not trying to **** on foo and a tradition doesn't have to reach into antiquity to be valid but making a big stink about a completely corporate-created tradition for something that isn't rare or special is not necessarily something i would associate with an enlightened consumer.

 

[edinatlanta]

Yeah im not trying to **** on foo and a tradition doesn't have to reach into antiquity to be valid but making a big stink about a completely corporate-created tradition for something that isn't rare or special is not necessarily something i would associate with an enlightened consumer.

I guess by the same token id have to hate on people who associate santa as a fat dude in a red suit thanks to cocacola.

WHICH ONE IS IT EDINA HUH HUH MAKE UP YOUR MIND YOU MILQUETOAST MULLIGAN

 

[TheFoo]

If only that were a cogent response to this assertion of "tradition."

The extrinsic genealogy of a practice does not invalidate whether it has accrued intrinsic value as a tradition—i.e., even if diamond engagement rings or Santa Clause originated from marketing campaigns, it doesn’t mean they have not since became cultural customs of their own merit.

Fake news.

 

[TheFoo]

“Grotesque payment for services.”

An obligation to provide a specific good as a condition to an agreement is, by definition, a payment. In the context of marriage, it is grotesque—at least with respect to any sort of marriage I’d want to have.

 

[edinatlanta]

An obligation to provide a specific good as a condition to an agreement is, by definition, a payment. In the context of marriage, it is grotesque—at least with respect to any sort of marriage I’d want to have.

Never let up with your verbose pomposity, my dude.

 

[Jr Mouse]

An obligation to provide a specific good as a condition to an agreement is, by definition, a payment. In the context of marriage, it is grotesque—at least with respect to any sort of marriage I’d want to have.

It’s telling that you can’t wrap your head around a couple picking out an engagement ring together without it involving the woman demanding it out of entitlement.

 

[TheFoo]

If only that were a cogent response to this assertion of "tradition."

Never let up with your verbose pomposity, my dude.

Can’t win. Because morons.

 

[TheFoo]

It’s telling that you can’t wrap your head around the scenario of a couple picking out an engagement ring together without it somehow involving the woman demanding it out of entitlement.

Lol

It’s telling you can’t wrap your mind around (1) why being upset with a gift not to one’s liking evinces entitlement and (2) why there is a difference between a gift recipient demanding control over a gift versus a gift giver, at his or her own discretion, offering the gift recipient the opportunity to help pick it out.