It’s Just a Ring

Mypartner is custom-making my engagement ring, and I’m afraid this might end our relationship.

This gorgeous man has been saving up for the ring of my dreams, coordinating with the ring designer, and coming up with concepts for the relic of our relationship that I’ll wear for the rest of my life.

I should consider myself the luckiest girl in the world. Instead, I’m just really fucking anxious.

He loves me, he loves me not…

I’ve watched too many videos, sifted through too many Reddit threads about how he’s just not that into you if your ring is not perfect, and if he doesn’t propose a year into your relationship, you’re a placeholder. For some reason, we’re all standing at the junctions of our relationships, frothing at the mouth about a ring that does little other than make for an Instagram post.

On the Waiting to Wed sub on Reddit, every woman has a similar story:

• He’s an amazing partner who does everything and provides BUT he’s also mean and dismisses my need for commitment.
• We’ve been happy together since high school BUT he doesn’t want to be married until he’s at least 30. I feel like it’s too late, is it?
• We discussed marriage years ago, and we were on the same page BUT now that the deadline is close, he’s dismissive and won’t discuss the details

Almost all the advice is a shade of, “Sis, leave him!”

We know this on a soul level: sometimes the love you share can walk with you until the next milestone, but not the rest of your life. As much as you want to sit still with them, if it’s destroying your peace, you gotta cross that bridge without them.

But it’s a fine line between being deluded by your lived experience and being disillusioned by the ghosts of pasts you’ve never lived.

When most people have their rose-tinted glasses, ones that make the red flags look like flags, I’m practically wearing zoom-in glasses Juni had on à la Spykids. Every bad story has me on high alert now, almost like I’m looking for reasons to leave my partner, whom I’ve had 2, almost 3 blissful years with.

A woman I know had posted, “I’m going to be engaged to the love of my life this time next year,” on her Twitter page in 2024. We’re zeroing in on a year since the Tweet, and the only thing she’s gotten is angrier at the vacancy on her left ring finger. Is this a canon event for women in heterosexual partnerships?

Engagement rings matter too much — and more than just thanks to marketing

“A ring does not define my love for her,” a friend of mine once told me about his dream woman. “She’s not superficial like that, she’ll be content either way.” My friend is single at 34, his dream woman is now posting baby pictures with the man who did care about the ring.

Most men seem to see the ring as no big deal, but one can also say the same about marriage. Just a ring and just a piece of paper are two phrases that seem to spill from people’s lips like a baby dribbling Cerelac.

“I think women having an expectation of how much their ring will cost is total crap,” a disgruntled Reddit wrote in r/unpopoularopinions. His opinion was, surprisingly, popular. But this expectation didn’t just come from marketing or the diamond industry. It came from our collective history.

The Egyptians saw deep meaning in the circle of life and the circle as a symbol for community and unity, so our understanding of offering a band of some sort may come from Ancient Egypt. The Celts and the Pagans used, instead, the symbolism of intertwining with handfasting ropes or cords that were woven around the joined hands of the spouses.

The Irish Claddagh ring — a ring of two hands holding up a crowned heart — is assumed to be inspired by Ancient Roman fede rings (where we get the word “fidelity” from), which showed two hands joining in “fidelity.” There’s a reason that shaking hands is such a common transaction-sealing professional protocol in the West. A ring was a symbol of good faith as marriages frequently happened by proxy, and the ring was a promise to keep up your part of the contract.

Writing this from Italy, I can attest that it was, indeed, an Ancient Roman tradition to offer an engagement ring — often complete with a carved central birthstone — to a bride to wear on her ring finger. It was believed that a vein in the left ring finger connected directly to the heart, known as the Vena Amoris, alluding to the silent show of romance and loving devotion that the marriage contract entails.

Of course, all veins — by virtue of being veins — connect to the heart, and there isn’t a single special one in the left ring finger.

But who cares about science when you have a romantic imagination, eh?

A ring that I still see in my dreams is the one the Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici gave to his betrothed, the Spanish Duchess of Florence, Eleonora di Toledo. The black onyx — Eleonora’s birthstone — is set in a gold band and has the symbol of dextrarum iunctio, the joining of hands in Italian faith, carved at the very bottom. Above the hands of matrimonial promise is a pedestal holding either a parrot — not native to Italy but seen as good luck — or a heron — native to Italy and a bearer of positive news. This pedestal rests between two cornucopiae, emulating the richness and abundance of the union.

In r/EngagementRings this would bring a tear to any to-be bride’s eye, but the ring was, foremost, a show of ownership. She’s mine, and she wears this when modeling for Bronzino and other artists to prove it.

There was a trend of creating the most elaborate, meaningful engagement ring imaginable — as a show of the craftsmanship of the time, of wealth and prosperity, as well as the generosity and emotional depth of the giver. It was once a bad look for a rich man not to give his beloved an intricately designed ring. People didn’t want to talk to you in court, and your wife would cry into her pillow.

A ring does not define my love for her. She’s not superficial like that, she’ll be content either way.

This is also why people seemingly decide that a poorly picked ring that isn’t a big chunk of your salary is demonstrative of how little you care.

It is cultural, specifically in the West, but also in India, to add expensive jewels that might mean something to an engagement ring to demonstrate that you understand your betrothed, even if you’re marrying for political reasons. In fact, before the 18th Century, the world diamond market sourced almost entirely from India, specifically the famed Golconda mines.

Mughal-ruled India’s route was to use massive, lightly carved diamonds known as polki diamonds inlaid into gold. This is the first known diamond cut, and still a sought-after style in India, today.

Since diamonds were not as accessible then as they are today in the West, tiny diamonds would be laid into other center stones to add radiance. The Biblically inspired Rose of Sharon ring from the 19th Century is a beautiful example. It’s rumored that the hibiscus — a flower known to denote passion and sexual energy — was the famed Rose of Sharon, and to give a woman a ring like that implied you were absolutely nuts for her.

Mind you, the extreme intricacy was reserved for nobles, royals, and courtiers. Unless her husband was a jeweler, a regular woman’s trousseau was modest, and her ring, simple but well-thought-out.

That is, until the 19th Century, when a woman working for De Beers coined the slogan, “A diamond is forever,” and paved the way to the stunning, expensive, but ultimately no-brainer solitaire ring. The ease of it especially made it alluring to male buyers, who no longer needed to overthink a ring at all. The money you spent, then, mattered more than the actual look of the ring.

As solitaires got more expensive, the world abandoned the mined diamond for the lab diamond. Today, it’s not uncommon for a man to spend some money getting either a vintage ring or a well-crafted ring with a lab diamond. We’re going back to the age of the artisan with the “alternative” birthstone rings that aren’t, in fact, as alternative as we think.

Some women will do anything for a ring, and what it means to the world

At sushi one night, my partner’s mother told me the story of a woman trapped in hell. Say hello to Gloria, a 50-something woman with big dreams and a bigger rock on her finger. She was the typical wife type: she routinely left their after-work drinks early, and went home for lunch, because she had to cook and clean for her 60-something fiancé. Gerald, Gloria’s partner, was a grumpy, retired old man with nothing to do but blow up Gloria’s phone when he got hungry or bored. Gloria was the recipient of what the kids call a “shut-up” ring: she had been on Gerald’s case for years to get engaged, so he put a ring on her finger so she’d finally shut up, but the actual wedding had never materialized.

For some reason, we’re all standing at the junctions of our relationships, frothing at the mouth about a ring that does little other than make for an Instagram post.

Gerald is retired and owns a beach house as well as the home they both share. She does all the cooking, cleaning, and refilling of his prescriptions. Since he already had kids when they met, he made clear he wasn’t going to have any with her, and Gloria’s remained childless since. She also paid for the mortgage despite not being on the deed.

“Is she even on the will?”

“Damned if she’d ever be,” she tells me, “but imagine giving all those years to someone who couldn’t even get you the ring without grumbling…”

All the work for a diamond she could’ve bought with the money she invested in a home she doesn’t even own.

It reminded me of this video of an awkward interview of the Bollywood actress Mallika Sherawat with comedian Aishwarya Mohanraj. Although meant to be comedic, there’s an interesting idea brought to light here.

“You have ring, I have husband,” Mohanraj says when Sherawat compares her 15-carat heart-shaped diamond ring to Mohanraj’s modest engagement ring. The pat reply is, “I prefer the ring.”

The issue isn’t size, it’s not how elaborate or elegant the ring is, it’s not even the price — it’s how women discern if their partner pays attention to them.

Something the Italians got right with their elaborately designed, custom rings is that they made their engagement rings with the wearer in mind. Birthstones were common, initials would be carved, and filigree patterns would match the lace of a dress. A modern ring that excited me came from the r/EngagementRings stories, where a man proposed with a simple bezel diamond that hosts a secret stained-glass effect window on the inside, made to match the window of the library where they first met. This is care, and women tend to show this off to denote, as they have done for centuries, that they’re provided for in a partnership.

Is a ring worth breaking up over?

Short answer — not necessarily. If your partner doesn’t know whether you prefer gold or silver jewelry because you don’t wear any, that’s a lack of information. But if, as this woman corroborates, the gold vs silver hoop theory that took over TikTok, if you wear gold and he buys you silver, or vice versa, it can denote a lack of care.

A brilliant-cut solitaire if you’re a maximalist polki lover doesn’t just denote being swept up by marketing, but a fundamental misunderstanding of who your partner is. This lack of care is frequently used to strong-arm women about “not choosing well,” without addressing that the lack of care is on the part of the proposer. Instagram posts of the ring do get zoomed in on, and your close friends do judge you, the proposee, for not getting a better ring.

This is also why people seemingly decide that a poorly picked ring that isn’t a big chunk of your salary is demonstrative of how little you care.

Proposers are also hassled, especially in the West, where there’s less of a jewelry culture than in the East. As an Indian woman, I grew up scrutinizing diamonds and gold. Anything below 22-carat is out of the question — it may be soft, but we’re good at handling our gold — and unless it’s heirloom polki, inclusions are a no-go.

But a nice big rock, as in Gloria’s case, doesn’t make a great relationship, while a smaller rock—or no rock at all—might not break one. I know this, and the anxiety still swells.

I watch my partner making mockups of what he wants, sharing exact specifications with the designer, and saving money for a purchase he deems important, and I know I’m in the presence of love and care. I’m the luckiest girl in the world who’s anxious that maybe I’m not worthy of the incredible effort he makes. Even if he believes I am.