It irks me a little bit that the issue is painted as one of "reason" versus lack thereof. There is a rationality in adhering to social convention.
My wife is a diamond nerd, as well as one of the most rational people you'll ever meet, and she'd explain it this way: the diamond is a test that serves various useful purposes from the perspective of the woman:
1) It demonstrates the man's ability to provide;
2) It demonstrates the man's willingness to forgo the other things he could buy with the money for a gift for her that does not directly benefit him in any way; and
3) It demonstrates to the woman's peers her husband's social standing.
An important thing to remember is that women take on a huge opportunity cost in getting married and having kids. My wife and I just had our first baby. Pregnancy and childbirth is a barbaric process and a woman will never be quite the same after. Taking care of an infant is tiring, stressful, boring, and thankless--and no matter how enlightened the husband is and how willing he is to help out, because of the baby's hard-wired inclinations the buck will always stop with the wife. Finally, if the woman is educated and has a career, that career will be permanently compromised by virtue of getting married and having kids. With all this in the background, it is evident that the social convention of the ring conveys valuable information to a woman considering getting married and bearing these costs. Re: 1, all else being equal a man that can provide more is more valuable than a man that can provide less. Re: 2, all else being equal a man that is willing to forgo things for himself is better than a man who is not; Re: 3, all else being equal a woman's social life will be positively affected in a tangible way by marring a man of higher social standing than of a lower one. It is totally rational for a woman to ask: "I'm willing to give up all this, what are you willing to do?" The ring is just a way to demonstrate this commitment in a way that is universally understood and spares everyone the awkward conversation of laying all the chips on the table.
Now, these elements are less important in 2013 than they were in say 1813. But at the same time to an extent they are not diminished in importance, but rather culture has shifted to downplay the uncomfortable truths at the root of these elements. For example, we like to downplay how much women really give up by being the child-bearers. But for an educated woman, if having kids cuts the probability of attaining a high position on her career by half,[1] the choice to have kids could mean millions of dollars in lost income over a lifetime. It's totally rational for a woman thinking of making such a compromise to demand from her potential husband a gesture showing that he is willing and able to take the other half of the bargain. But all this is something that we don't say in polite company, because we have fully bought into the mythologies about marriage that are in vogue at the moment: that it's just about "love" and all that matters is a mate that makes you "happy" and that it's an arrangement that is costless to enter into and exit out of.
There is, of course, nothing inherent about diamonds that makes them the only option for this kind of signaling. Indeed, in other cultures a cash gift is the norm instead. But the value of a signal is in its standardization, so to speak, and it just so happens that the diamond is the standard signal in western culture.
[1] Less than 20% of women never have kids, but about half of very high achieving women (executives, etc) never have kids.
1) It demonstrates the man's ability to provide; 2) It
demonstrates the man's willingness to forgo the other
things he could buy with the money for a gift for her
that does not directly benefit him in any way; and 3)
It demonstrates to the woman's peers her husband's
social standing.
To play devil's advocate here: If you substitute 'ring' with 'a $3k donation to redcross' you could still potentially qualify all of those 3 conditions. The pertinent question is: why spend a large amount on a rock with possible associations of slave labor that is of absolutely zero functional value when you can ... well, spend the amount on anything else of value, and indeed still meet those 3 qualifications.
It doesn't qualify (3), which is a very important one.
I've got a daughter. She's only 4 months old, but I've had occasion to think a bit about this. I would not want her to marry someone who wasn't willing to give her a ring? Why? Reasons (1) and (2) I mentioned, sure, but also reason (3). It is the mark of a sensible man that he cares what other people think about him. People who buck social conventions sometimes become trend-setters and are incredibly successful for it, but more often just make life harder on themselves and the people that depend on them. Do I want my daughter to be with a man that is willing to create headwinds for himself out of foolish principles and refusal to conform? All else being equal, no (although I don't have any illusions about how much of it is up to me!)
> It is the mark of a sensible man that he cares what other people think about him.
A sensible man only cares what other people think about him when it is to his benefit to do so. A foolish man cares what other people think about him all of the time.
> People who buck social conventions sometimes become trend-setters and are incredibly successful for it, but more often just make life harder on themselves and the people that depend on them.
In my experience, people who believe in marking the checkboxes of life have an awfully hard time discerning the difference between falling off the beaten path, and taking a shortcut.
> Do I want my daughter to be with a man that is willing to create headwinds for himself out of foolish principles and refusal to conform? All else being equal, no
It seems exceptionally foolish for you to rely on abstractions and proxy signaling (eg, buying a diamond) to discern the attributes of the person your daughter would be considering marrying. One would hope that the evidence for those attributes ought to be entirely apparent to her before that point.
Therein lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO things. Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy. Stop acting like you have a set path, because you don't. No one does. You shouldn't be trying to check off the boxes of life; they aren't real and they were created by other people, not you. There is no explicit path I'm following, and I'm not walking in anyone else's footsteps. I'm making it up as I go. - Charlie Hoehn
Yes. It's really important to be selective in what you choose to oppose, but just because you're opposing certain social norms doesn't automatically mean you're invalid. They deserve objective analysis.
My wife and I have been married 4 years now and gone primarily without rings. No negative consequences so far, and I'm definitely glad I didn't dedicate 20%+ of my income to a valueless trinket. We have objects that signify our relationship, but they're cheap or free, and imbued primarily with sentimental value only. This is, in my estimation, much better than propping up the diamond myth and cartel.
Exactly. It's like Valentines day. I ignore it, my girlfriend ignores it. Why should I need some marketing guy to tell me when to tell my girlfriend I love her, that should be happening anyway. To me conforming just tells me you're just a sucker in these kinds of instances.
> I would not want her to marry someone who wasn't willing to give her a ring
That seems like a really shallow and material evaluator of the character of a human being.
> People who buck social conventions sometimes become trend-setters and are incredibly successful for it, but more often just make life harder on themselves and the people that depend on them
Well thank God that Jackie Robinson, Marie Curie, or Barack Obama didn't believe this. Sometimes being different from the rest of the crowd and following your passions is more worthwhile rather than striving to "fit in" by purchasing status-enhancers.
You're preaching exactly the nonsense DeBeer's wants you to preach; they've got you hook, line, and sinker. None of those things require wasting money on a stupid worthless rock. You've shut down thinking.
Right, so that's a conveniently pragmatic approach to the issue.
Most of us nerds are fighting the idea of diamonds signifying social standing. The practice, and culture of giving expensive rings is objectively wacky. You're right that in your social circle taking an odd position will cost you your reputation, but consider that in the past many morally reprehensible practices were the norm and being an odd one out would cost you your reputation. If you operate on a framework so rigidly tied to social standing you might make pretty wacky decisions down the line. Ultimately, decisions made on this framework may not always be the wisest decisions.
That is so fucking sad. Aren't there literally hundreds of traits more important in a husband than buying a ring?
Tell me this statement is satire: "Do I want my daughter to be with a man that is willing to create headwinds for himself out of foolish principles and refusal to conform? All else being equal, no"
Your logic is technically sound, and I'm not faulting you for thinking that way, but for me personally that's an unfortunately regressive way of looking at the world. I'm unsure where the idea that being principled requires being foolish comes from, but I myself would care more about the character of my daughter's husband (and incidentally, the assumed father of my grandchildren). I'm not even sure what one would be trying to optimize for with this line of thinking. Couldn't this same concept lead to: "I'd prefer a man who knows exactly how much to cheat and steal and hurt others, as long as he makes sure the direct cost to him is less than his benefit"?* Is that really a man you'd like to see raising your grandkids?
*Just to clarify, to avoid making this seem like a strawman: I'm creating a deliberately extreme example that to me seems like the logical extension of optimizing for "success" (or minimizing headwinds) at the expense of character (personified in your example by someone who's principled as opposed to a follow-the-herd type person). The purpose of this is to highlight the fact that this is someone you're accepting into your family, and the importance of that becomes particularly clear when you consider that the man he is will in large part shape the men and women you're grandchildren are.
"but I myself would care more about the character of my daughter's husband "
Parent commenter is interested in someone who thinks the way he does. There is nothing wrong with that and there are probably more parents from my experience who wants someone who hold their views then are willing to accept someone with different views.
I'm laughing because we were arguing back and forth in this thread, and your description of the type of man you want you daughter never to marry matches me exactly.
I hope you get your wish! Children often find a way to push our buttons, however.
So you want a mindless drone for your daughter. What a shame. I'll bet you also want them to do exactly as government says and "conform" as they walk him, her and their kids into more senseless wars.
Blind conformity is one of the most dangerous behaviors a society could exhibit.
Caring about what other people think of you leads to things like joining the KKK, stockpiling guns and killing six million Jews. It's religious think.
See, me, for my daughter, I'd be proud if she married someone who suggested they take the $30,000 he would have spent on a dumb diamond ring and try their hand at starting a business. Even from failure they would grow and learn.
There is no learning from in buying a diamond ring. It does not prepare you for life in any imaginable way. It does not prepare you for economic difficulties, medical problems or to develop a good sense on financial matters. It's just plain dumb.
"It is the mark of a sensible man that he cares what other people think about him."
Agree with you (and my daughter is much much older).
I would be totally wary of a man that decided in lieu of buying a ring for my daughter to make a donation to a charity. The ring is a gift for the woman. In the event of a divorce the woman typically gets to keep the ring it's an asset and does have value despite all the drivel of the OP and everyone else here is saying. Owning 100% of something that is only worth 50% of what someone else paid for it is still more than 0 (what you get with a charity donation at least monetarily).
I would say it's the mark of a sensible man who understands how to be aware, influence, and the effect of what other people think of him, but does not actually care.
Someone who actually cares what someone thinks of him based on whether he bought an overpriced hunk of carbon is what sensible call a "deuschebag."
Maybe the Red Cross can start making some sort of low-cost jewelry (perhaps similar to those yellow rubber wristbands?) that, while cheap in material cost, signify that the wearer donated a very large sum of money to the organization (or someone did so in their name).
It might as _well_ be fake, just like the value of the diamond she procures.
After all, it's just a matter of her social standing, not the importance of the relationship and a marriage between two human people. I hesitate to use the word soul, but maybe here it applies.
Diamonds are _so dehumanizing_ and this thread would have me thoroughly depressed if so many people weren't arguing against DeBeers.
> People who buck social conventions sometimes become trend-setters and are incredibly successful for it, but more often just make life harder on themselves and the people that depend on them.
That's a pretty loaded way of putting it. It comes across as saying that the only two options are being an incredibly successful trendsetter or making things difficult for themselves and dependents. Yes, you could argue that technically it's not saying these are the only options, but it sure strongly suggests they are.
I think that dichotomy is ridiculous - as if the two ends of the spectrum are the only two possible outcomes. If you put it that way of course it seems like a bad thing to buck social conventions.
> Do I want my daughter to be with a man that is willing to create headwinds for himself out of foolish principles and refusal to conform?
I don't think your comment gives an argument for why those principles are supposedly foolish.
.
You are of course free to say and do as you please. Such freedom of views also applies to others, and IMO the attitude expressed in your comment is a small-minded one.
If suitability of the partner is determined by the giving or not giving a ring (instead of knowing the partner) it is better so stay away from the marriage altogather.
That may sound like a nice idea, but it's a expression about your principles where she has deal with all of the consequences. The ring is for her, she will be the one who has to explain this decision to everyone who asks about the ring (read: absolutely everyone in her life). Many of these people will have diamond wedding rings, so now she has to explain this decision in a way to doesn't offend them. No offense, but she may prefer to spend that time gushing about how excited she is about her upcoming marriage and how awesome her fiancé is.
The ring does have functional value, but for her and not for you. Part of the point is that is doesn't directly benefit you at all.
"that is of absolutely zero functional value when you can"
So what's the functional value of entertainment then? It makes you feel good. A diamond makes a woman feel good. It's that simple. Doesn't matter why. It's for her. Not up to a man to judge the value anymore then you want a woman deciding the value of why you might spend you money on whatever makes you feel good.
It doesn't matter why, even if the "why" has been specifically conditioned into the both of you just so that the person selling the diamond makes a profit? That seems a bit... I don't know... tragic.
(To be clear, though, I'm a nerdy gay like the parent commenter, and I can't fathom a situation where either my boyfriend or I would ever want the other one to buy a diamond for any reason, so there's probably some component of the dynamics here that I don't fully grasp.)
Honestly, I find the notion of "man as provider" to be perverse, but if I buy into your worldview for a moment...
1) Your wife can measure how much you can provide just as well by having you actually provide valuable things. Like a house.
2) Your wife can measure your unselfishness by having you buy something that is actually valuable to her but useless to you. Like daycations with her friends. There's no sense in buying something which is valuable to neither party.
3) The need to demonstrate your social standing to other people is the result of low self-esteem. Maybe your wife needs therapy, not a diamond.
> Honestly, I find the notion of "man as provider" to be perverse, but if I buy into your worldview for a moment...
Why? It is, to this day, even in the U.S., the dominant arrangement between men and women, especially in the context of relationships that result in children.
> The need to demonstrate your social standing to other people is the result of low self-esteem.
That are very pragmatic reasons to invest in signals of social standing. It minimizes the cultural friction between yourself and the people who can help you get ahead, who are overwhelmingly people of high social standing themselves.
Because I advocate relationships where contributions are granulated and distributed according to participant interest, not participant gender. Monolithic roles like "provider" (and the concomitant role of "consumer/sex object") of are inherently coercive. Because they're monolithic and tied to gender. I think that kind of coercion is perverse.
> That are very pragmatic reasons to invest in signals of social standing
I don't think those signals are meaningfully connected to anything real, they're just signals of standing. They are power begetting power, and I think willfully engaging that system is perverse.
> Because I advocate relationships where contributions are granulated and distributed according to participant interest, not participant gender.
Okay how do you distribute child-bearing according to participant interest? How do you distribute child-rearing according to participant interest, bearing in mind that an infant just wants to suck on a breast and doesn't care about your views on gender roles.
> Okay how do you distribute child-bearing according to participant interest?
Adoption.
> How do you distribute child-rearing according to participant interest, bearing in mind that an infant just wants to suck on a breast and doesn't care about your views on gender roles.
There are some limits to what can be shared. I advocate going right up to that line. A woman who wants to raise a baby at some point has to make tough choices about formula, breast pumping, bonding, and her other priorities in life. There is a qualitative difference between the handful of hard limits imposed by biology, and the many limits imposed by compulsory monolithic gender roles.
The IQ of children is highly correlated with the IQ of parents. Adoption is not, for educated couples, an alternative to having their own children.
> A woman who wants to raise a baby at some point has to make tough choices about formula, breast pumping, bonding, and her other priorities in life.
You can make things as equal as possible, but no more. My wife and I have almost identical educational backgrounds. We accepted very similar jobs out of school (she will technically be making more money than me considering benefits). We had our baby her last year of school so she wouldn't have to take maternity leave, with the negative stigma associated with that. I'm taking a couple of years off from working at a large law firm so I can work a 9-5 with a judge and take more baby responsibilities and allow her to focus on her career. We're trying extremely hard to make things as equitable as possible between the two of us.
But at the end of the day if my wife had suffered a complication in child birth (it is still the most dangerous thing most people do), it would have fallen to me to provide for her and the child. I was not the one who had to take that bodily risk, therefore I assumed by default the "provider" role, or at least had to be fully prepared to assume that role. Therefore, it was totally rational for her to have been concerned, pre-marriage, about my ability to do so.
So childbirth is extremely dangerous but adopting a kid already out there looking for a home isn't an option for an educated couple...you'd rather your wife risk her health.
Adoption is a great option for many couples, educated or not. I didn't say otherwise. What I said was that it's not a fully equivalent to having your own kids. Not worse, but not equivalent. If you're educated, high-IQ tiger parents and want to raise highly successful children, statistically you're better off having your own kids than adopting. This is not to say that adopted kids can't be successful or anything like that. But IQ is heritable, and the simple fact is that there aren't a lot of high IQ couples giving their kids up for adoption.
>If you're educated, high-IQ tiger parents and want to raise highly successful children, statistically you're better off having your own kids than adopting
This is the most depressing thing I read in this whole thread. The idea that one should view raising "highly successful" children as some kind of outcome they can control or influence through "high IQ tigerness" and cold economic analysis is humorous and sad all at once. Coupled with encouragement to not buck a pointless social tradition because it may make (shallow, deplorable) people judge you as less worthy and thus may negatively impact your future prospects of becoming more like them seems like a rather sad way to live life, but I guess we all have our own goals. The fact that after thousands of years our species is still mesmerized by shiny rocks we dug out of the ground is also odd to me, but apparently not others.
It's always amusing to see the two parallel readerships of HN collide. I love a good fireworks display.
Like BBC radio 4 has a leftie, public-services-union-member audience and a rightwing traditionalist audience who are largely unaware of each other, HN has an ivy league educated randian-hero readership and a more old-school, "just give me an ounce of weed and a hex editor and I'm happy forever" readership, and both is convinced the other is intruding on their community.
> The IQ of children is highly correlated with the IQ of parents
There is plenty of research to suggest that socio-economic (SES) status is the driving factor behind IQ, not genetics. An adopted child's IQ will tend to be higher if adopting parents have high SES
Ignoring whether that's true or relevant to family planning, I never said you can divide up roles randomly without ever making tradeoffs. Just that it's coercive to adhere slavishly to distributions of labor which are 1) monolithic and 2) bound to gender.
> That are very pragmatic reasons to invest in signals of social standing. It minimizes the cultural friction between yourself and the people who can help you get ahead, who are overwhelmingly people of high social standing themselves.
Translation: I have shitty friends and assume everyone else does too.
A diamond ring is a signal that is _always_ showing, unlike something like a house. It's a signal to the world that displays someone's wealth, commitment, etc.
This doesn't make it right, but there are numerous human psychology reasons why this tradition endures and so many people take part in it. Writing off people who want or provide a diamond ring as mentally ill (as many people in this thread seem to be doing) is silly.
Absolute nonsense. Therapy is very useful to many people who are not mentally ill. I would venture to say that most people who see therapists are not mentally ill. If you think "mental illness" when somebody says "therapist", you probably need to do some reevaluation.
Out of genuine interest (it's hard to convey tone via comments sometimes), can you expand on this comment a bit?
What do you consider mental illness to be? And what is therapy in your view?
The term 'mentally ill' in my view has been stigmatized quite a bit, and being 'unwell' mentally does not mean you are crazy, but that you have issues you feel you need to deal with. Isn't that the point of seeing a therapist?
Reasons that you could see a thearapist, that would not traditionally be considered mental illness in casual conversation, can include: coping with occupational stress, coping with grief, preparing for anticipated grief, coming to terms with mortality, (often for children) learning what mortality is, coping with changes in lifestyle (including divorce, marriage, birth of a child, birth of a special needs child, inability to have a child, moves to unfamiliar locations, moves to unfamiliar cultures, loss of religion, loss of a job, release from prison, release from the service), (as mentioned by erikpukinskis) feelings of inadequacy or low self-esteem, ...
Just about anything people may have talked to priests about in the past they can now talk to therapists about.
Now, if you want to define mental illness such that it covers all of these things, and all the other reasons to see a therapist, that is fine. Words are just what you make of them; you can, of course, define them as you see fit.
However, if you redefine mental illness in such a way then I can see really no justification for using the negative connotations that mental illness normally holds to facilitate mock outrage ("Writing off people who want or provide a diamond ring as mentally ill (as many people in this thread seem to be doing) is silly.") Instead of criticizing erikpukinskis for "writing off those people as mentally ill", perhaps you should instead explain why you do not agree with his suggestion that low self-esteem could be a factor.
Man this thread is killing me. Apparently I need to start wearing my salary and Mint.com balance on a name-sticker on my shirt to attract more mates. And then when I get one, make them wear a sticker indicating that they are mine, because without that, surely they would just be scooped up by the next person looking to own another person.
Welcome to the "brutal truth" of applying economic theory and armchair psychology to human interaction. I sometimes hypothesise that the people peddling these notions do it because they really do see life as an economic system and consequently, no arguing with them would change their opinion, because they're obviously right. Meaning, I wonder if this is a simple case of "I expect others to experience things the same way I experience them". However, I can't imagine someone really thinking that way. But that's maybe because I don't.
We're a society of monkeys that use social convention as a fluid device for mediating social interaction. We are a species where, thus far, the burdens of motherhood are associated with a single gender. We are a species that derives deep satisfaction from reproducing (from hard-wired hormonal responses), and have structured our society so that it would collapse without the assurance of continued generations of future humans. These things are true whether or not you would prefer an alternative world in which they weren't. Relevant to HN: at the end of the day Facebook stock is worth a lot less, and VC funding dries up if it becomes apparent that the 16-25 demographic is one of monotonically decreasing size...
We are a species where, thus far, the burdens of
motherhood are associated with a single gender
I agree with you here. I don't know why the HN crowd is refusing to see this point... an infant in its early months really needs the mother.
But I disagree on the point that the role of motherhood inextricably falls down on a woman's turf for the years to come. As a male I can say that I would be happy to be a stay-at-home-dad after the infant is of a certain age -- and I have met many women who're okay with this idea (of the man staying at home while the woman makes money).
> But I disagree on the point that the role of motherhood inextricably falls down on a woman's turf for the years to come.
As a practical matter, the latter follows the former, almost inexorably. Between the negative stigma of being pregnant at work to the negative stigma of taking maternity leave, to the negative stigma of having to be there for your young child when it is still in the "I need my mommy" stage (which lasts into the first couple of years), by the time the father can assume a fully co-equal role in parenting the woman has already substantially compromised her career and it becomes rational, in a perverse way, for her to be the one to undertake further compromises.
However I wonder if many of the stigmas you mention are ingrained into society only by the persisting culture, and so one should not fear challenging them? There are many single-dads that do a wonderful job of raising kids alone as a single parent (admittedly I don't know any who started taking care of the kids below the age of 2 -- and I do accept that even 2 years is a hell of a long time).
I think there is a lot culture can do to help make the distribution of child-rearing responsibilities more equitable. But who wants to risk their career progression to challenge the culture?
Rayiner some of your other posts are showing up as dead. I suspect this may have something to do with your other posts receiving negative points (HN algo tripped up by that probably).
I'd recommend dropping a small note to info@ycombinator.com telling them to do something about this.
Just because you can provide some flimsy after-the-fact-rationalizations* doesn't mean that it's reasonable.
That's ok though, desires/hobbies/cultural practices/etc are generally not based in reason.
/* For example, it's very doubtful that today you would gain any real insight into a persons ability to "provide" from them giving you a diamond...in fact it's more likely to deceive you (they could purchase on credit, buy a stolen/fake one, etc). You'd learn much more about that from simply dating/courting them - knowing about their spending/saving habits, profession, etc.
1) It demonstrates the man's ability to provide useless expensive things rather than their willingness to prepare for tough financial times (which are more common at this early stage in family life).
2) See: 1)
3) It demonstrates to the woman's peers that she is shallow enough to respect social standing over more admirable (and important) qualities, unless they're just as shallow.
But all this is something that we don't say in polite company, because we have fully bought into the mythologies about marriage that are in vogue at the moment: that it's just about "love" and all that matters is a mate that makes you "happy" and that it's an arrangement that is costless to enter into and exit out of.
What you so casually disregard as "mythologies of marriage" is the result of striving for equality. A hundred years ago, marriage was indeed just another economic transaction. The suitor paid the father of the girl, who was happy to have her off his hands, being of no use in succeeding him to lead the family business.
We have not yet reached equality, so alimony is still law and being pregnant a career ender. Hence we still need the economic signaling provided by diamonds.
Indeed, it is arguably more of a concern for women who are more educated and thus more "equal" in relationships with men. A worry among my ambitious female friends is getting stuck in a relationship where they are both the primary caregiver children and the primary breadwinner. And it's not an idle concern. Society pushes the role of primary caregiver on women. I'm father of the year when people find out I take the night feedings, but my wife gets nothing but criticism for not breast feeding, for the kid not being sufficiently bundled up, for the kids bottle not being capped while in the stroller cup holder (this happened today).
Damn people. Our one was off warm milk very early, weened herself at 3 months old, and hates hats. Try telling old biddies that she isn't cold, hates hates and prefers cold milk. Keep on keeping on.
Edit: And that reads like I'm competing with you. I'm not, because that just as bad. Remembering the loud comments and idiocy of strangers makes me a touch wild.
Sure, but there are different ways of signaling such things. If someone is so tradition-bound they themselves don't value the relationship itself higher than some specific traditional signaling method then that's typically a strong indicator of their lack of commitment to the relationship.
tl;dr if a woman will only love you / stay with you when you buy them expensive things they don't actually love you.
It's easy to say that but that's not how human nature works.
When you buy things for other people, it is generally a positive for your relationship with them. In general, they are happier and think better of you. Getting upset about it and saying they don't 'really love you' is not true and not super helpful.
Human nature is very hard to change, no matter how intelligent / introspective we become. Do you never buy your significant other dinner, a night out, or gifts of any kind?
Infidelity is also human nature. Is that also just to be expected in a relationship?
If someone isn't willing to compromise in the face of reason (e.g. "we can't afford an expensive wedding or a ring", or "I'm concerned about supporting conflict in Africa and supporting the diamond cartel") then I'd say the relationship is probably not strong enough to last.
But it's not as clear cut that this is a 'negative' aspect of human nature, and I would strongly argue that infidelity is NOT necessarily human nature, at least not as fundamentally as gift giving / signaling.
And you're moving the argument here - previously we were talking about buying an expensive ring, not supporting armed conflict or purchasing something you can't afford.
Given the state of the economy and the average savings rate in the US the "typical" diamond engagement ring is simply not affordable for many people. More so, the idea that acquiring a diamond through the De Beers cartel does not at worst indirectly support conflict in sub-saharan Africa and at best help prop up brutal dictatorships is just extraordinarily naive.
Human nature only talks about the average, I know a few people that dislike expencive gifts as it makes them feel obligations that they dislike. Gift giving is a vary cultural activity which makes it seem a lot more innate than it is because most people you interact with share the same bias.
Absolutely. I'm not saying it applies to everyone, in fact I'm completely on your side - disagreeing with (and demonizing) giving a diamond because it's not how you operate is silly.
"1) It demonstrates the man's ability to provide;"
I can do that by buying houses. Diamonds are only a good indicator of frivolity with cash.
"2) It demonstrates the man's willingness to forgo the other things he could buy with the money for a gift for her that does not directly benefit him in any way;"
It demonstrates a lack of sense on the part of both parties.
"3) It demonstrates to the woman's peers her husband's social standing."
Not if you start to look at it as a huge waste of cash it doesn't.
--edit-- to expand on that last point; if diamonds started to be viewed as a pointless and vulgar excess, like shiny rims or a full set of gold teeth, then it could demonstrate a lack of social standing. They only currently demonstrate a positive social message because of convention. Why not change convention?
I wanted to bring up rims and teeth to head off the obvious criticism that something expensive (the diamond) is worn to demonstrate exactly that you don't have to think about money - many other things purchased for this reason are sneered at by most people.
This is a "longstanding tradition" that was invented out of whole cloth in the 1930's and 1940's, by a series of De Beers advertising campaigns involving product placement with the Kardashian analogues of that era, culminating in the "A Diamond Is Forever" radio ads. Shaming America's male and female populace into buying into their cartel, the 'customary price' they recommended for diamond rings to demonstrate love rose continuously, not only in absolute terms, but as a share of personal income. It's an arms race with both zero objective value to anyone, and significant negative externalities.
1,2, & 3 can be accomplished by lots of gifts that aren't diamond rings. Why waste the "gesture" on a diamond ring, that if the husband leaves (divorce, death, whatever), isn't worth even close to what was paid for it.
Wouldn't it make more sense for her husband to take that money, and purchase a bond (or security, or something else that's guaranteed to raise in value) and put it in her name, and her name only?
Have you ever been pregnant or had a child? It's 9 months of misery punctuated by 12 hours of stress and agony, relieved only by the epidural. That's followed by weeks of pain and bleeding, and major bodily changes of various degrees of permanence (stretched out abdominal muscles, stretched out hips). Oh, and post-partum depression. And that's if you're lucky. Childbirth can last way longer than 12 hours, it can involve vaginal tearing that requires reconstructive surgery (not uncommon), and is ultimately the most life-threatening and risky thing your average person will ever do.
Yeah, it's "magical" and whatnot, but my wife would rather be water-boarded than be pregnant again.
My wife really enjoyed the experience. We had a home birth. No epidural. Two kids.
It is a life changing experience for both wife and husband. It's part of life. Life isn't a video game. It's not a synthetic experience. Some people may prefer to be a brain in a jar hooked to some wires but then where would they put the diamond ring? :-)
My wife is a zealot in the anti home birth holy war so I'm going to just express my happiness that yours found it enjoyable and slowly walk away from the keyboard.
yeah, usually there are provoking stories on both side. I work in a radiology department that has a strong obstetric focus, and obviously that leads to a particular view. I hope her reasons don't have too much trauma behind them, but suspect they do.
This is a poor statement I feel. How is it more dangerous? You drive once, and have a baby once, one for once the giving birth is vastly more dangerous.
Historical average death rate for the mother alone would approach 10%, and in 3rd world countries, it is still over 1%. For driving the death rate is something like 20 per 100,000, or as a better measure, something number of tens or hundreds of millions of KM of driving per death.
"We" spend on average three months worth of salary. Around £5k I guess. Certainly not enough for a house, but a good amount of money to put towards your first family home when you get married. Houses need furniture and all that fancy stuff. :)
Not necessarily a tenth, but most people here don't buy houses outright. It would be a significant investment towards a down payment or month' of mortgage payments.
The silly/sad/stupid thing is when you put it in context of a ring+marriage ceremony. The same way many college students are starting out life with debt, they often go and add 25-30K of extra debt between an expensive, value-less ring and a wedding ceremony.
I'm sorry but those reasons are absurd. That is actually more abhorrent than anything I was imagining. I need to prove my ownership of my woman and have to buy her expensive things to prove my worth? shudder. I feel gross.
This is bullshit. There was never any bargain. Women have kids because women want to have kids. It's not because men are pressuring them into having kids and giving everything else up against their will. Women will split up with men who don't want to have kids. I've seen it happen. Women will get baby hunger around age 35 and jump on the nearest guy, to marry him in order to use him a sperm receptacle to get pregnant with. Again, I've seen it happen.
The husband doesn't owe the wife anything just because she wanted kids or because pregnancy is painful. If she wants kids, she has to be ready to pay the price without whinging about it. If you had said the husband owes it to the wife to put aside thousands of dollars for the child's education, that might have made sense, but implying that he owes her a stupid gem because she can't be giving birth and at work in the office at the same time is just wrong.
Eh, it's not that unusual. It is rational and well-accepted that men also pick suitable women for mates by whether or not they have child-bearing hips and are good cooks.
Excusing childish behavior by calling it rational doesn't make it less childish. Relationships or hook-ups might _start_ on factors like that, but they don't survive if that's what constitutes the substance of it.
And if the _symbol_ of your supposedly permanent commitment is a diamond, that says something very cynical about that marriage.
I'm sure there are good marriages with diamond rings involved. I'm pretty sure those marriages aren't successful because of that, but rather in spite of it.
My wife is a diamond nerd, as well as one of the most rational people you'll ever meet, and she'd explain it this way: the diamond is a test that serves various useful purposes from the perspective of the woman:
1) It demonstrates the man's ability to provide; 2) It demonstrates the man's willingness to forgo the other things he could buy with the money for a gift for her that does not directly benefit him in any way; and 3) It demonstrates to the woman's peers her husband's social standing.
An important thing to remember is that women take on a huge opportunity cost in getting married and having kids. My wife and I just had our first baby. Pregnancy and childbirth is a barbaric process and a woman will never be quite the same after. Taking care of an infant is tiring, stressful, boring, and thankless--and no matter how enlightened the husband is and how willing he is to help out, because of the baby's hard-wired inclinations the buck will always stop with the wife. Finally, if the woman is educated and has a career, that career will be permanently compromised by virtue of getting married and having kids. With all this in the background, it is evident that the social convention of the ring conveys valuable information to a woman considering getting married and bearing these costs. Re: 1, all else being equal a man that can provide more is more valuable than a man that can provide less. Re: 2, all else being equal a man that is willing to forgo things for himself is better than a man who is not; Re: 3, all else being equal a woman's social life will be positively affected in a tangible way by marring a man of higher social standing than of a lower one. It is totally rational for a woman to ask: "I'm willing to give up all this, what are you willing to do?" The ring is just a way to demonstrate this commitment in a way that is universally understood and spares everyone the awkward conversation of laying all the chips on the table.
Now, these elements are less important in 2013 than they were in say 1813. But at the same time to an extent they are not diminished in importance, but rather culture has shifted to downplay the uncomfortable truths at the root of these elements. For example, we like to downplay how much women really give up by being the child-bearers. But for an educated woman, if having kids cuts the probability of attaining a high position on her career by half,[1] the choice to have kids could mean millions of dollars in lost income over a lifetime. It's totally rational for a woman thinking of making such a compromise to demand from her potential husband a gesture showing that he is willing and able to take the other half of the bargain. But all this is something that we don't say in polite company, because we have fully bought into the mythologies about marriage that are in vogue at the moment: that it's just about "love" and all that matters is a mate that makes you "happy" and that it's an arrangement that is costless to enter into and exit out of.
There is, of course, nothing inherent about diamonds that makes them the only option for this kind of signaling. Indeed, in other cultures a cash gift is the norm instead. But the value of a signal is in its standardization, so to speak, and it just so happens that the diamond is the standard signal in western culture.
[1] Less than 20% of women never have kids, but about half of very high achieving women (executives, etc) never have kids.