Suing to get Engagement Rings Back

[Tez3]

My early understanding of the etiquette was that if the bride broke it off, she had to return the ring. If he broke it off, or did something really bad, she could keep the ring.

Me, we'd been living in sin for six years, bought our first house, got married in the living room and our son was the ring-bearer. Nice diamond in a classic solitaire setting. Bought it from a pawn shop jeweller for $700. Blanche has always loved it.

I don't know about tax in your countries but thats a hugely good idea here. 'Second hand' jewellery here doesn't attract so much tax so when you buy you get more or less what you pay for. Plus a lot of the older settings are very attractive more so sometimes than some of the new ones. You get more choice in the type and colour of gold you want as well.Same with the way diamonds are cut, theres some lovely Victorian cuts they don't bother with now for the mass market.
( my mum was a jeweller so a bits rubbed off lol)

 

[punisher73]

i read somewhere that the custom of the engagement ring was started as a way of compensating for the loss of her value as a virgin, since it was accepted that enagaged couples would have sex.

that way, if the engagement was broken off, she was less "valauable" as a bride, but had something of finite value to make up for it.

sort of a deposit.

sounds insane to me, but that was the story

the engagement ends, the ring goes back

I hadn't heard that, but I had heard that the reason why most engagements were a year is to ensure that the would be bride was not pregnant with another's person's child. Way back when, marriages were arranged as contracts to either insure peace between tribes/nations or to increase your holdings as a private individual.

In some cultures, you had to present "proof" after the consumation that the bride was a virgin. I remember an exchange student that my wife knew of that was from India and had a prearranged marriage. She came to America and lost her virginity and the family paid to have her hymen recontructed so as to provide the "proof" and not bring shame to her family.

 

[grydth]

Reading this thread about these gila monsters has made me appreciate my wife all the more. There's one thing worse than not getting your ring back, and that would be winding up married to one of these things.

 

[Gordon Nore]

Seems to me, back in the days, major jewellers gave engagement ring buyers X months to return the ring -- 'in case the young lady changes her mind.'

 

[MA-Caver]

Seems to me, back in the days, major jewelers gave engagement ring buyers X months to return the ring -- 'in case the young lady changes her mind.'

Yeah I remember that too but they found out that it wasn't good business practice. Because if the sales people were on commission then they lost money paying the commission and thus...

Way I see it, I'm not asking any woman to become engaged to me until I/WE know for sure that we got a good thing going. If you're in it for the "long-haul" then you can afford to seriously date a year then become engaged then seriously engage for a year.

But I think I'm being naive again...:inlove: true wuv :inlove: is just totally too unpredictable to plan that far ahead.

 

[Carol]

Diamond/precious stone engagement rings were, for awhile, toys of the rich and famous. They were not very popular in the U.S. until 1950 when DeBeers launched what was perhaps the most successful ad campaign of all time - "A Diamond Is Forever"

Personally I wouldn't dream of keeping an engagement ring if the engagement was broken off for whatever reason. That's just....wrong. *shudder*

 

[grydth]

That Debeers campaign was wonderfully parodied by McDonald's one year... maybe we should just give our intendeds a burger and fries......