I didn't know if this should be here or on the main board. But I'm curious to know how strongly some of the females feel about getting engaged in what we believe is the "traditional" way. Here is a couple paragraphs to poder. Any thoughts?
Glitter and Greed
The diamond engagement ring tradition could be the greatest PR scam ever invented. It is ingrained in society that everyone from the stockbroker to the janitor has to shell out thousands to the diamond industry if he wants to marry his woman.
Eighty years ago, your great grandparents ... gave each other big wooden boxes and simple things like promise rings and hope chests. The allure of diamonds is part of a huge, century-long conspiracy by the diamond industry, namely giant De Beers, which controls stockpiles and sets the price of stones, which aren't the rarest in nature, even though they're the most expensive.
Source: http://www.blacktable.com/bruno031030.htm
Another good read:
In 1919, De Beers experienced a drop in diamond sales that lasted for two decades. So in the 1930s it turned to the firm N.W. Ayer to devise a national advertising campaign—still relatively rare at the time—to promote its diamonds. Ayer convinced Hollywood actresses to wear diamond rings in public, and, according to Edward Jay Epstein in The Rise and Fall of the Diamond, encouraged fashion designers to discuss the new "trend" toward diamond rings. Between 1938 and 1941, diamond sales went up 55 percent. By 1945 an average bride, one source reported, wore "a brilliant diamond engagement ring and a wedding ring to match in design." The capstone to it all came in 1947, when Frances Gerety—a female copywriter, who, as it happened, never married—wrote the line "A Diamond Is Forever." The company blazoned it over the image of happy young newlyweds on their honeymoon. The sale of diamond engagement rings continued to rise in the 1950s, and the marriage between romance and commerce that would characterize the American wedding for the next half-century was cemented. By 1965, 80 percent of American women had diamond engagement rings. The ring had become a requisite element of betrothal—as well as a very visible demonstration of status. Along the way, the diamond industry's guidelines for the "customary" cost of a ring doubled from one month's salary to two months' salary.
http://www.slate.com/id/2167870/pagenum/all/#page_start
See what the fellas have to say about it: http://www.bgol.us/board/showthread.php?t=447381
Glitter and Greed
The diamond engagement ring tradition could be the greatest PR scam ever invented. It is ingrained in society that everyone from the stockbroker to the janitor has to shell out thousands to the diamond industry if he wants to marry his woman.
Eighty years ago, your great grandparents ... gave each other big wooden boxes and simple things like promise rings and hope chests. The allure of diamonds is part of a huge, century-long conspiracy by the diamond industry, namely giant De Beers, which controls stockpiles and sets the price of stones, which aren't the rarest in nature, even though they're the most expensive.
Source: http://www.blacktable.com/bruno031030.htm
Another good read:
In 1919, De Beers experienced a drop in diamond sales that lasted for two decades. So in the 1930s it turned to the firm N.W. Ayer to devise a national advertising campaign—still relatively rare at the time—to promote its diamonds. Ayer convinced Hollywood actresses to wear diamond rings in public, and, according to Edward Jay Epstein in The Rise and Fall of the Diamond, encouraged fashion designers to discuss the new "trend" toward diamond rings. Between 1938 and 1941, diamond sales went up 55 percent. By 1945 an average bride, one source reported, wore "a brilliant diamond engagement ring and a wedding ring to match in design." The capstone to it all came in 1947, when Frances Gerety—a female copywriter, who, as it happened, never married—wrote the line "A Diamond Is Forever." The company blazoned it over the image of happy young newlyweds on their honeymoon. The sale of diamond engagement rings continued to rise in the 1950s, and the marriage between romance and commerce that would characterize the American wedding for the next half-century was cemented. By 1965, 80 percent of American women had diamond engagement rings. The ring had become a requisite element of betrothal—as well as a very visible demonstration of status. Along the way, the diamond industry's guidelines for the "customary" cost of a ring doubled from one month's salary to two months' salary.
http://www.slate.com/id/2167870/pagenum/all/#page_start
See what the fellas have to say about it: http://www.bgol.us/board/showthread.php?t=447381
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If you've already talked about marriage with her, ask her if she wants a diamond or something else.
