"If she doesn't live forever, why buy her diamonds?"

This Christmas a few friends and I were hanging around and the subject of diamonds came up. As might be expected, there seemed to be a partisan debate along the gender lines. The double X chromosome contingent was of the persuasion that a diamond ring is pretty much a necessity to remotely demonstrate the true love necessary for an engagement. The defining characteristics were things such as tradition, commitment, and effort. Further justification where ideas that it was always done that way and that the time taken to earn the money to pay for such an item should help solidify the decision to make that lifetime commitment. The Y chromosome debaters attempted to bring up history as a means to debunk the aspect of tradition as it was then pointed out that such rings were not even given until after the practice was portrayed (on a paid basis, mind you) in movies. I never claimed to be particularly erudite in this area, but I remembered through a previous article that this practice did not even start until our grandparents' generation of around the mid-1940s. In 1982, 'The Atlantic' had an article on the diamond industry and a bit of investigative history. Part of it pointed out that:

In 1947, the agency commissioned a series of portraits of "engaged socialites." The idea was to create prestigious "role models" for the poorer middle-class wage-earners. The advertising agency explained, in its 1948 strategy paper, "We spread the word of diamonds worn by stars of screen and stage, by wives and daughters of political leaders, by any woman who can make the grocer's wife and the mechanic's sweetheart say 'I wish I had what she has.'"

People often use the oppression of farmers and the poor as a means to dissuade against drug use, but rarely is anything heard about the legal cartel and the atrocities committed for profit. If you are wanting, or already have a diamond ring, then you should take the time to read the article and understand the full history of this practice. I'm not trying to kill the allure of the symbolism that involves an engagement, however you really should have more of an idea of what happens behind the scenes and what it takes to get to you the ball of carbon molecules that you might want to wear on your finger. BTW, the picture above is a representation of the covalent bonding of carbon atoms, pretty much the same thing that is in coal or the core of a pencil, that is the make-up of a diamond. Now with that said, I'm not against gifts of affection in the least and actually think that the small things in life make things fun. When I make that commitment to someone, I already something planned that well be very personal and symbolic. What it is no one, but one person, will know until that time.