To give or receive?

I have discussed traditions in weddings somewhat in the past few blog entries, but I began getting interested in one particular one when BF asked for something which is distinctly non traditional. 

My colleague (and friend) K has just announced her own engagement which happened while she was away in the mystical orient with her boyfriend. She is defying tradition, not by having a small wedding, but because she will not be changing her name to her partner’s, for both professional and personal reasons.

Which I think is entirely sensible. 

"I hope it's mine"

Names were changed originally not merely to imply ownership of the female partner in the ‘good old days’, but also to ensure continuous heredity through the male line. This has always seemed an impractical way of doing things in my mind. Any woman could pass off a child as a different man’s than her husband, but it takes particular cunning for her to pass off another woman’s child as her own. What with all the carrying and birthing etc. it doesn’t matter who the father was, you can see when a woman is pregnant and watch the birth to ensure you know what line it carries. Paternity tests in the Middle Ages were harder to prove. The Queen doesn’t change her surname for work reasons; why should we ordinary folk have to? 

Mr and Mrs Pratt?

My Aunt and Uncle both have doctorates with different surnames for professional  reasons, and have found it a pain on occasions when they are put in a twin bedroom and even at times, separate rooms because hoteliers assume they are not a couple. I can see why it is practical to take your husband’s name. I hugely respect my Aunt’s and K’s decision to keep their professional surname AND all my friends who have all become Mrs XYZ. What did emancipation and the vote give us after all but the right to a choice in these things?

Another consideration is taking on the new name if you don’t like it. Another friend with her wedding in the pipeline (they are dropping like diamond encrusted flies at the moment into engagements) hates her future surname. I can understand that. I once went out with a man called Mr Pratt and remember thinking before we’d even gone on a first date (pointless worrying, as it was a no go from 3 seconds after meeting him) that he’d have to change his name to mine eventually if it went well. I would never be Mrs Pratt.

BF would like me to take his name. My name sounds rather pretty with his surname and frankly my father’s surname, despite being a very old name, has enough little curly haired tots carrying it on already. I’ll change it for him because he would like me to. I am ambivalent and am happy to keep my own name or change it. Why should it therefore bother me?

And this is when he surprised me. Also, he said, he wanted an engagement ring please. I hadn't even thought a man would WANT an engagement ring. I laughed it off until i realised he was serious. I was surprised (BF isn't the type to wear jewellery in my mind) but it seemed fair enough. I got one after all; why shouldn’t he? 

So I went on Etsy, the only place where I could track down a ring in the metal he wanted. This was Niobium – a super conductive element  named after Niobe of Ancient Greece (famous for boasting about her children in front of the Gods who then killed them all), and which happens to be the metal he wrote part of his Pd.D. thesis on. Did I mention BF is a Dr of Clever Stuff? Lucky I am not one too if I go by my Aunt’s experience.

He also wanted it in purple.

I don’t know what my feelings on this were – well, I know what they were on the purple, but I mean the ring itself. Practically, his ring was comparably cheap compared to mine despite the fact that I had to have it commissioned specially. I had his ring size from our wedding ring file so that was easy. It also turned out that his brother and dad both had engagement rings; I liked this. It was an L family tradition, and one day it might even be something we passed on to our own kids, or our nieces and nephews if the kid thing never happened. Plus it is an intensely personal gift with a lot of happy associations. 

£120 Male Engagement Ring, H Samuel

Male engagement rings. What a lovely, if slightly untraditional, idea to pledge your troth before marriage on both sides – especially if you have a long engagement in front of you. 

£3500 Male
Engagement rings, Beeverbrooks

And more common than you might think. Smooch (the company we eventually bought our wedding rings with) told me that they often sell male engagement rings and that the number of rings they are selling with diamonds and other precious stones in them is on the rise steadily. Now the high street are getting in on it with H Samuel and Beaverbrook to name a few selling male engagement rings. Ascending to a mind blowing £3500 for a platinum diamond ring (although most are around the £300-800 range) they are yet another wedding accoutrement which may soon turn into a ‘must have’ item. I got off lightly with Niobium by the looks of it, although H Samuel has one as low at £75.

£75 Tioro Male Engagement ring, H Samuel 

Also, looking at some of these rings, how will a man wear it? A woman slips her wedding ring on under her engagement ring; both items tend to be fairly slim and dainty. Men’s rings are bigger, heavier and bulkier in the main. A man surely can’t fit all of that metal on his hand? This Daily Mail article (no, I am not a reader but the article is relevant!) by Sara Nelson states that the ring will be transferred to the right hand when the wedding band is placed on the left hand. Most men will therefore go from wearing no jewellery to having it on both hands within a year or so. And if a woman proposes first to her man and buys him a ring, does she get a ring as well after the proposal has been made? Are two rings to be the standard? It’s opened up a mind boggling can of wedding etiquette worms for me.

Another friend and his boyfriend also recently got engaged (not all of my friends are planning weddings you know). They are (obviously both being men) not a heterosexual couple. I asked him how they did the whole ‘ring’ thing. Both saw wedding rings they liked but neither wanted to wear two rings. So R had a wonderful two piece necklace made for his proposal and his BF proposed with the ring that R wanted for his wedding ring. R has bought him an engagement ring in return and they will then use both rings as their wedding rings. Simples.  

Anyway, back to the niobium ring. I had it made and shipped (HMRC you are horrible people charging me so much extra customs charge from the US) and I proposed to BF romantically in the pasty section of M&S Food services on the A34. There was no element of mocking involved. Well, maybe a bit.

Our engagement rings

A few weekends later when he went to Prague for his friend’s Stag Do though, I think I got it. There was a certain, despicable part of me that rather LIKED the fact that BF had a stamp saying ‘taken’. In the main, it was a badge to other women which said he ‘belonged’ to someone just as my ring was my personal ‘taken’ badge to other men.

Is this how men feel when they give us an engagement ring? Do they feel the same smug, odd emotions of possession and belonging that I did when BF put his own ring on?

It’s an interesting post-modern question – why are women who balk at changing their name for philosophical and feminist reasons happy to have this symbol of unity and implicit ownership on their finger? Do men feel the same way about wearing one? Is there an inherent ownership which comes with an engagement ring in the same way as changing your name does, or are these merely the husks of once important, legal and symbolic traditions?

Whatever you think (and here comes what I always say) it’s your choice. And who has the right to judge what you decide to do as a couple? No-one. You do what the heck you want!

For me it is not a stamp of ownership to either of us, but one of pride. I love seeing his ring on his finger and he says he feels the same way. That can’t be bad. So here’s to new traditions, even if they are going to push your budget up even higher!