Okay but…why are engagement rings a thing??? Why get an expensive ass ring then wait a year or two and then get another expensive ass ring???? But like…if you propose without a ring then you’re an asshole??? What??? FUK
The De Beers diamond company ran a massively successful advertising campaign in the 1930s that a man isn’t a real man unless he spends a month’s wages on a diamond engagement ring.
Wedding rings and engagement rings have a longer history relating to courtship as well as dowry/brideprice practices. Some historians have argued the engagement ring is a game theory move. The groom is sending an expensive signal to the bride that he seriously intends to marry her, and isn’t just saying he will to keep her around. Idk how legit that is, but that’s what I was told by a professor once.
I’ve read that they came into fashion when breach of promise laws stopped being a thing and a woman who was “ruined” after a broken engagement could no longer sue
That sounds accurate. I’d never heard of “breach of promise” laws.
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Thoughts From The Peacock Angel 