Rings for the finger : $b from the earliest known times to the present, with full descriptions of the origin, early making, materials, the archæology, history, for affection, for love, for engagement, for wedding, commemorative, mourning, etc.Kunz, George Frederick
History
Rings for the finger : $b from the earliest known times to the present, with full descriptions of the origin, early making, materials, the archæology, history, for affection, for love, for engagement, for wedding, commemorative, mourning, etc.
Kunz, George Frederick
Rings; Rings -- Folklore
Many of those who were married before platinum was used for wedding
rings have recourse to an ingenious device by which a plate of platinum
is spun or turned over the entire part of the setting which is visible,
so that the gold ring will appear to be of platinum, either plain,
carved or chased. Great ingenuity is required in this mounting, because
it is in most cases impossible to permit the metal to do more than
touch the inner part of the ring. Otherwise, the size of the circlet
would be reduced. Alliance rings are sometimes made one side gold and
one side platinum.
At the present time many platinum wedding rings are made perfectly
plain, others are engraved with a laurel wreath, as a peace or
anti-divorce symbol, with oak leaves for strength, ivy for clinging
devotion, and some other symbolic devices. Many alliance rings are made
of two parts, one bearing the names of the engaged couple, the other
the date of the engagement. Narrow gold rings with diamond settings are
also used, closely resembling the type of diamond ring that has been
worn as a guard-ring for many years.
That men should be forced to wear wedding rings is a proposition
recently agitated in London. Public attention was called to this
question by newspaper reports to the effect that a young lady had
testified at a divorce suit that she had innocently encouraged the
attentions of a married man, because she had no means of knowing that
he was married. In many continental countries married men are always
expected to wear such rings, although there is of course no legal
compulsion to do so, any more than in the case of a wife. We can hardly
deny that anything serving to fix the status of both men and women in
the matter of their marital relations is eminently desirable.
[Illustration: Lady’s gold ring, with French motto: “_Mon cœur
est à vous_” (My heart is yours)
Albert Figdor Collection, Vienna]
[Illustration: Engagement ring with adjustable hoop; fully open;
half-open; and closed]
[Illustration: Ornamental wedding rings, and separable alliance
wedding ring of “gimmal” type closed and open]
[Illustration: WEDDING RINGS. PLAIN GOLD, PLATINUM AND CHASED]
Apropos of wedding rings, the notice of a special marriage ceremony
performed for a man and woman who were both ardent advocates of woman
suffrage, suggests that such unions might be signalized by the use
of a ring of a characteristic type. In this case the parties to the
marriage contract were careful to emphasize the fact that the union
was one between equals, each of whom made the same pledge of fidelity
and love to the other. Perhaps a ring enamelled with the suffragette
colors might be acceptable to the pioneers of the new era. As in many
old-fashioned marriages the woman was accorded a _de facto_
primacy, the man who willingly accepts the doctrine of the equality of
the sexes may be rather a gainer than a loser by his adherence to the
new faith.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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