Move over, engagement ring.

I read an article some time ago, I might have already raved about it, saying how the diamond engagement ring tradition is really very modern, an invention of the diamond cartels to flog diamonds to the prosperous middle class of the 50s. Basically it was a really successful advertising campaign, with "diamonds are forever" and "diamonds are a girls best friend" and all that, fed to the public through movies and film stars and songs. Actually, according to that article, diamonds are a pretty poor investment, they decrease in value after you buy them and diamond dealers never buy them back. So all they have is really good branding.

It's still a nice thing to do, a pretty ring is a lovely symbol of a promise, I'd be pleased to get one myself. But it's just doubling up on the job the wedding ring does, really. So if it came to my choice, I now feel like there would be other things I'd like to spend that money on than propping up the diamond industry. Someone in the office reported last week that a ministry they are part of received a donation of the money they would have spent on a ring. He thought that his fiancés faith was the real treasure and they agreed to donate the ring money instead to the ministry she had most benefited from as a young Christian. That's awesome. Myself, I'm a Jane Austen heroine, and I think an engagement piano would be lovely. It worked for Marianne Dashwood and Jane Fairfax. Romantic, nice to look at, and a lot more useful to me. All theoretical, of course.  I can always buy my own piano. See how I worked this whole post into justification for buying myself a piano?