Put an end to
Traditions around engagement protocol - aka sexism and clever marketing - are out of date and unnecessary says Jane Bradley
When I bumped into an old friend on the street last week, she had exciting news.
Of course, as soon as she stuck out her left hand and waved it at me, I knew what she was about to say she had just got engaged.
When I finally did spy the ring on her finger, I was almost blinded by the diamond. And a beautiful one it was. I wish her a lifetime of happiness with her new husband.
But it got me thinking about what engagement rings actually are and what they mean.
The fact that just waving a left hand can signify that my friend is to pledge to spend the rest of her life with her partner shows that we still abide by the idea of giving a woman’s hand in marriage, a difficult concept for most women to stomach these days.
For full disclosure, I have to admit that I do wear an engagement ring myself, alongside my wedding band. My husband wears a wedding ring too, something, which a generation ago, would have been seen as a slight on his masculinity. My dad didn’t wear one. I bet yours didn’t either.
An engagement ring is a symbol of betrothal which has signified an impending wedding - and therefore the removal of the woman from the marriage market - for centuries.
“If you like it, you should have put a ring on it,” screams the Beyonce song, as “all the single ladies” wag their ring fingers in the air in a sign of what they somehow believe to be feminist solidarity but actually sums up everything that, to me, is wrong with marriage in the modern age.
The idea of ownership, that a man should find something he likes and “put a ring” on it to mark out his territory - and, what is worse, that a woman should want him to do so and no longer wants to be in a relationship with him if he won’t - makes me want to hurl my own diamond into the nearest lake in