It's a very common human vice, to want to feel competitively superior to one's peers. Fancy cars, jewelry, designer clothes, you name it--these industries depend on the urge to make others jealous.

Cubic zirconia or other gems might be cosmetically identical to a diamond. Wanting a $30K ring for its "color neutral" characteristics smacks of astroturfing.

> It's a very common human vice, to want to feel competitively superior to one's peers.

And to be clear, it's not exactly as if women are the only ones who have this vice. Women are just the ones likely to receive engagement rings.

It's relevant not simply to "an entire gender", but to the whole world of people, primates and most other animals.

It's because social status by definition is a zero-sum game. For status symbols, the absolute value is irrelevant; but what matters is the value relative to your peers.

+1 for social status as zero-sum game. Imagine your social status if you jumped back 2,000 years and could still conduct your current lifestyle: being able to feed yourself for a week from only a fews hours of labour; travel across the Atlantic in a 8 hours at the cost of one weeks labour; access all human knowledge in seconds at near zero cost.

> Perhaps if she's going to wear a ring for the rest of her life, she wants it to be a nice ring that is color neutral.

So CZ then? That saves money for the point below.

> Perhaps she doesn't want something cheap and easily replaceable acting as a symbol for your marriage.

You mean like having kids?

> Perhaps she doesn't want something cheap and easily replaceable acting as a symbol for your marriage.

i.e. she cares more about symbols than about the real thing.