LogFAQs > #979735908

blu posted...

Ive been with my girlfriend over six years now. Its probably about time.

I mean, I've been with my girlfriend about 25 years now. Time isn't the only factor you should be considering.

And if you're only considering it because of how long it's been, maybe you should be reconsidering.



adjl posted...

At the same time, though, actually spending three months' salary on a piece of jewellery is pretty dumb and mostly comes across as trying to demonstrate your financial stability to convince somebody to be your mate.

The main demographic that that keeps pushing that particular advice is the jewelry/diamond industry. For obvious reasons.

Arguably the concept of the engagement ring itself mostly ties back into ideas of symbolizing ownership (when women were mostly property) and indicating an intent to wed in advance (to give time to allow witnesses to come forward to prevent bigamy), neither of which really matter all that much today (or should be seen as outright bad). The diamond industry only latched onto that about a hundred years ago to help expand their market (and they wildly succeeded).

It's basically the same way bacon became seen as a breakfast food in the 20th century - a canny marketing campaign radically altered the way people see the world, to the point where most people don't remember a time when it wasn't that way. In spite of the fact that it wasn't that way for thousands of years, and only started being that way within our grandparents' lifetimes.

If you want to demonstrate your financial stability to support a spouse, you'd be better off not spending thousands of dollars on a more or less pointless ring, because if anything that displays better spending habits and thriftiness which will help prevent you from making stupid economic decisions in the future.