It's Got a Ring To It

Q.: What do getting engaged and getting engaged in ethical-wedding discourse have in common?

A.: They both start with the ring.

I know I'm getting ahead of myself here - I still have numerous ethical principles to discuss - but we had some sparkly new developments on the ring front over the Thanksgiving holiday, and I'm excited to blab about it. But before we get to My Ring (Ah, the suspense!), let's discuss rings in general.

"Everything tries to be round," observed Black Elk, holy man of the Sioux tribe Oglala Lakota,  in the early 1900s. The geometric perfection and mystery of the circle has long carried magical and supernatural connotations; circles and cycles have been worshiped and revered in many forms (orbits, lunar cycles, seasons, biorhythms), and have become the symbols for many of mankind's weightiest concepts: Zen, eternity, life and death, and in the case of the wedding ring, love.

But first, a little history. Wedding rings are the oldest wedding tradition of all, outliving by centuries the white dress and even the "I do." The first evidence of rings as marital symbols dates back some 5,000 years ago to the deserts of North Africa; Egyptian art depicts wedding rings worn by both husband and wife. The circle-shape hieroglyph stood for eternity (not, by any means, uniquely Egyptian symbology); the hole in the middle represented a gateway or door - the wearer passed through it into a new partnership that endured even in the afterlife. These early rings were woven from the reeds and grasses that grew along the Nile, and typically only lasted a few months.

They wore it, as we do, on the third finger of the left hand, believing that it intersected a vein or artery that went straight to the heart.  This tradition passed to the Greeks and then to the Romans, who called it the vena amoris, or vein of love. The vena amoris intersects the upper-right crease of the palm, which soothsayers came to call the "love line."

Meanwhile, Egyptians weren't the only ones making the easy connection between love and the circle symbol. Pre-Celtic European tribes - builders of enduring circular monuments like Stonehenge, Newgrange and Ireland's ubiquitous ring forts - enacted wedding rituals honoring the sun and moon in circular temples, followed, in the Orkney Islands, by a clasping of hands through the Odin Stone's circular fissure, which sealed their union.  Eastern countries, on the other hand, developed their own wedding customs, and didn't acquire European ring traditions until the twentieth century (some traditional Japanese and Vietnamese women still stain their teeth black as a sign of their married status).

Anyway, centuries passed, and metallurgy came into fashion, however crudely. Rough-hewn iron, copper and brass rings were set with semi-precious stones meant to indicate wealth rather than sentiment. The acts of giving and accepting the ring were now legal ones - the ring was an sign of irreversible consent to marry or of marriage itself (which was often synonymous with the proposal), enforceable under the law.

By the Renaissance, gold and silver were popular metals for wedding rings across Europe; indeed, the Irish believed that having a wedding ring made of anything other than gold was bad luck, or simply illegal (gold rings were often provided for the ceremonies of those who could not afford them, and swiftly reclaimed afterwards). Having a separate engagement ring also came into fashion at this time.

On Aug. 17, 1477, Mary of Burgundy became the first bride-to-be to receive a diamond engagement ring.  Her betrothed, Maximilian of Austria, was counseled that the diamond would assuage her doubts about marrying him.  By the mid-1600s, diamond engagement rings were fashionable in Europe, though rings set with other gems, particularly rubies, were also very common.  It wasn't until the mid-20^th century that diamond rings became the icons of engagement that they are today, when De Beers launched its infamous "diamonds are forever" campaign in 1938, making diamonds essential to three-quarters of modern American brides. (De Beers even tried to make male engagement rings popular in the 1950s to generate sales, going so far as to invent a fictional historical precedent, but the trend never took. Their next - wildly successful - marketing scheme was the popularization of the diamond trilogy: three stones for every ring, denoting past, present, and future love.)

And that's where we arrive at the diamond discussion. After all, before organic catering, before nixing the garter toss, before evites, there was the ethical wedding ring, in its many permutations - wood, titanium, recycled gold; set with conflict-free diamonds, vintage diamonds, man-made diamonds, or no diamonds at all. For the diamond is the ultimate paradox: the icon of value and purity, and the origin of greed and violence.

Your average diamond is pure, compressed carbon over a billion years old, volcanically disgorged from more than one hundred miles below the earth's crust.  (Some diamonds also form as the result of asteroid impact.) It is the hardest known naturally occurring mineral; the very word's Greek origin, adamas, means invincible. Diamonds have been used for tools, decoration, sacred objects, and instruments of war for more than six thousand years; they have been variously thought to be tears of the gods, heal sickness and insanity, guarantee victory, and symbolize love.

These elegant abstractions bear little witness to the reality of diamonds.  Far from rare, diamonds are mind at the rate of 130 million karats annually, largely in African mines with slave and child labor, little mechanization, no safety standards and even less supervision.  Prostitution in mining camps abounds, and HIV spreads rapidly as a consequence. These appalling conditions, coupled with the funneling of mining profits into insurgent activities and terrorist organizations, went largely unrecognized for many years before a series of regulations were passed between 2000 and 2003, including the Clean Diamond Trade Act, attempting to enforce mining standards, squelch illegal diamond trade, and certify individual diamonds "conflict-free."  (Recently, Leonardo DiCaprio starred in the film "Blood Diamond," which engages with problems surrounding the diamond business.)

Many criticisms of the diamond trade remain, however.  First of all, jewel giants like De Beers (which controls 40% of the diamond market) monopolize distribution and determine pricing without regard to actual diamond rarity.  Illegal, substandard mining and trade still abound, and the sources of individual stones remain difficult to determine, in spite of their "conflict-free" certification.  New, certified mines with "transparency" policies have opened up in other countries - most notably, Canada - marketing their ethical stones at increased prices; but, regardless of adherence to worker safety and child labor laws, diamond mining still takes a tremendous toll on the environment.  Two hundred and fifty tons of ore must be removed to find a pea-sized diamond; several hundreds of thousands of "industrial-use" diamonds are mined for every jewel-quality stone. Ecosystems are decimated and water sources despoiled while heavy machinery belches carbon and other toxic pollutants into the atmosphere.

It is for these reasons that, recently, many environmentally- and ethically-conscious couples are choosing not to use diamonds in their engagement and wedding rings, opting for more sustainable options ranging from synthetic stones to wood to rings made of bone generated from their own stem cells (woah, but ew!). 

Which brings me to the engagement ring I designed for Jeremy.  No, it is not made from my bones (or anybody else's) - it's made of wood! When I first began researching ethical alternatives for engagement rings, I discovered Touch Wood Rings, described as a "socially just and environmentally sustainable alternative to precious metals and gemstones" by their creators, David and Nicola Finch. David and Nicola produce individually handcrafted rings made from gathered fallen wood in their solar-powered workshop in British Columbia, alongside a coop of hens and a handful of sheep. Nicola, who handles communication with clients, was incredibly warm, informative and accommodating, and through our correspondence, I felt a real kinship to her; she and David have the kind of life I hope to have someday - sustainable, creative and content. 

The ring I designed is made of three kinds of wood.  The outside of the ring is a warm, burnished oak - the official tree of  Jeremy's home state, Illinois, and a deciduous tree to mark the passing of seasons, years, and cycles of life we will spend together. A ribbon of blue spruce - my favorite perennial tree - runs iridescent-gray through the middle of the band; I chose an evergreen to characterize the eternal nature of our love.  Inside, the band is lined with white birch, a tree to which Jeremy and I have a personal connection (and when he proposed, Jeremy gave me a temporary ring made out of braided birch bark, which reminds me of those original Egyptian rings, made from braided river grass - speaking of cycles). Inside the ring, carefully inscribed by David, is the phrase "Dreamers in the Wildwood" - a shipment of cookies goes to the lucky reader who can tell me where that quote comes from!

Because I hastily measured his finger with a string while he was sleeping, the ring came out a little big, but otherwise, utterly beautiful, and the perfect gesture of the sustainability of our values and love. At a price befitting a lovingly handmade item - but not one that will break the bank, or, as De Beers used to put it, cost "just two months' salary" - I recommend Touch Wood Rings to everyone!

After we got engaged, Jeremy and I discussed having one made for me to match his.  We kept putting it off, though; it was a bit more money that we were able to spend after other engagement-related splurges, and we also felt we needed to decide what kind of wedding rings we would like to have - because if we decided to have wooden wedding rings as well, Jeremy would need a better-fitting one, and I would want one to match it.  In the meantime, I wore a series of temporary birch bark rings, lovingly braided by my darling fiancé every time I broke the previous one.

After much deliberating and a deep sigh of regret, we decided against wooden wedding bands, because you're not really supposed to get them wet.  If you know me, you'll know why this would be an issue - I have a long history of losing jewelry that isn't more or less permanently affixed to my body.  Jeremy also confessed that, while he adores his wooden engagement ring, he lives in terror of losing it every time he washes his hands.

So, something a bit more durable was in order. Some quick research revealed that diamond mining isn't the only ecologically unsound practice; many gems and precious metals, particularly gold, do significant environmental harm during their extraction.  Recycled/vintage stones and metals looked like the way to go.

And that's about as far as we got.  We perused the sites of eco-jewelers like GreenKarat, and we amassed a little collection of pretty designs for inspiration - but no developments beyond that.

Until last week! Over the Thanksgiving holiday, Jeremy's mom bequeathed her wedding ring to him, and told him/us to do whatever we wished with it. Jeremy presented it to me (a second proposal, practically! Yay!) - and what do you know, it fits perfectly.

It's a very special piece, obviously, with a beautiful, unique (if slightly 80's - no offense, M.I.L.E.!) (Mother-in-law-elect, pronounced "milly"...which makes Jeremy and me "Silly" and "Dilly") gold setting, and two…dare I say hefty?...diamonds that belonged to Jeremy's paternal great-grandfather (more on their history when I learn it). What an honor and a treasure!  Since it fits like a glove, I intend to wear it as my engagement ring; then, when our wedding is nigh (!!!!! Misty!), I think we'll reset the stones and melt down the gold for a band for Jeremy. That way we'll each have a piece of it. That still leaves a lot of room for design creativity, obviously, as well as questions about what material to use for my setting.  I'll definitely return to this topic as we move along in our plans. 

So I have diamonds, after all that.  Who'da thunk? I'll admit that it's strange to walk around wearing something so valuable and so heavy with history - billions of years, even. It might also be the first time I've owned something precious that I'm concerned someone might try to take from me. Now there's a state of being so many brides-to-be must unwittingly enter - a constant awareness of this exposed, valuable item; having a new impulse to protect a thing. I'll admit that it doesn't exactly jive with my attempted nonattachment-to-material-possessions, unlocked-door lifestyle.  But hey, gorgeous recycled family heirloom obviously trumps all!  Even stem-cell bones!

Whew.  Thus endeth the ring diatribe. More soon.  Please send me ideas!

Kate

Comments

[Merry Croft]

Beautifully written! I can't wait to see the ring on your finger. One day the rings on my left finger will also go to you. They too belonged to your father's mother and some of the stones in them to her mother before her. I did not know the sordid history of diamond mining, and that precious stones and metals could cause our planet such grief. I was just happy that they lasted forever, and beyond, as I like to think our marriages will and your grandparents’ marriages did. I applaud the thought you and Jeremy are putting into the choices you are making. I rejoice in the happiness that comes out of your written words.

Mom

[Al]

I want to begin by saying I am really learning so much from your blog! Your account of diamond mining, as well as the history behind engagement rings, including your beautiful one which I was lucky enough to see in person, is not only riveting, but also wonderfully written, as always. And while I may have cheated a little, this is where I found the phrase "Dreamers in the Wildwood:"

- Tangelwood Tree lyrics by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer

cookies? :)

[Rob A]

Hey folks,

Greeting from the land of the wanderers! Good post, and I'm glad you went with something vintage. There's so much here already, why create something new?

I do like the idea of a wooden band though, absent the pretense of 'forever.' I like that sense of impermanence, as it implies balance. Nothing lasts forever, and attempts at it are an enormous fight against life. And of course, nothing need last forever to be beautiful.

Hope you two are swell!
Rob

[Ryan Dowell Baum]

Great post! Molly and I went through many of the same struggles you're working through. In the end, we went with Green Karat for Molly's engagement ring and both of our wedding bands--a lab-created blue diamond and recycled white gold. We were very pleased with their work.

This is an exceptionally interesting blog! I've got marriage on the mind big-time lately, what with my own wedding less than 4 months ago and three weddings to officiate this year! As I help folks plan their ceremonies, your site is turning out to be a wonderful resource to contemplate the magic and mystery of two souls uniting.

Hope we manage a get-together while Molly and I are in your neighborhood!

Love and blessings,
Ryan

[Ryan Dowell Baum]

Great post! Molly and I went through some of the same struggles you're working through. In the end, we went with Green Karat--a lab-created blue diamond and recycled white gold. We were very pleased with their work.

This is an exceptionally interesting blog! I've got marriage on the brain big-time lately, what with my own wedding less than 4 months ago and three weddings to officiate this year! As I help folks plan their ceremonies, your site is a wonderful resource for contemplating the magic and mystery of the uniting of two souls.

Hope we can manage a get together while Molly and I are in your neighborhood in a few weeks!

Love and blessings,
Ryan

[Lori Mack]

Kate, I love you. I love that you're turning such a consumption-driven event into a public testament of your values, and I love that you're spreading the word about it with this blog. How cool! I wanna be you when I grow up. Except that I'm 5 months older than you.

Have you considered registering with Heifer International? ( www.heifer.org ) It's my very favorite charity, because they give pairs of animals to villagers in poor parts of the world, along with training on how to care for them, use their products, and sell their products to others. Then, the first-born offspring is given back to Heifer International, and the chain continues. And now, you can start a registry on their website! I love what they do, and it sounds like their mission might be right up your alley.

Let's get together over Christmas...I'd love to catch up!

--Lori

[Joseph Kunitzer]

Thank you so much for your postings...even before your vows are final, the two of you are already making wonderful creations for the good your own relationship, and for other people's relationships, too! Congratulations!

[Simone and Jackson]

Now THIS was interesting!!!!!!! I love history and hearing rich personal family history. Thanks for sharing :-)

[astraevirgo]

I found your blog while googling about the Wedding Industrial Complex today, and I'm finding it really interesting. I've linked my boyfriend to your blog to help explain a few things that I've been struggling with regarding the next step in our relationship.

You're very lucky to have such supportive friends and family, by the way. I love reading their comments as much as reading your posts.

[Kate]

astraevirgo - thanks very much, and welcome! we'll be back and posting in earnest starting next week, and if you have any subjects in particular you'd like me to cover, feel free to submit via email at katecroft at gmail dot com. we're going to have a lot more going on here soon!

take care,
kate

[Loaf]

Hey, just discovered your blog and I love the approach you are bringing to the crazy task of wedding planning!

I got my girl a wood ring made of oak and bogwood when I proposed to her (from Simply Wood Rings). It's neat to hear about someone else who went in that direction too!

[Alex]

Hiya! I love your blog, of course - and I was thinking about Jeremy's ring; I did a quick Google search and (although I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for), how about something like this?: http://www.suncatcherdesigns.com/servlet/the-1/RING-GUARD/Detail
It's plastic, so not exactly the material of choice for you two, but my thinking was, it's clear (so it won't cover the etching on the inside), it's removable and it will fill up the extra space. An additional thought: you might not have to _buy_ it. You could probably _make_ something like it out of another piece of clear rubber or plastic.
Then Jeremy won't have to live in fear. Those are my two cents. :)

[Jessica McLeod]

This post was great! I had a very similar experience-- after spending hours searching Etsy for hand-crafted silver rings with semi-precious (or not at all precious!) stones, my mum presented with my grandmother's gold and diamond engagement ring... and I love it! It feels really special to have a piece of family history on my hand.

[Hildred]

Kate,

This is Hildred, - from DaybyDay.

I have really enjoyed reading this blog, and thought you might be interested to know that David Finch, of Touch Wood rings is my son, and Nicola my dearly beloved daughter-in-law.

The world is just full of such wonderful things!

I have been missing your Pie in the Sky blog....

[tungsten wedding rings]

You have a very informative blog,those ring was so antique and i think its priceless. Keep posting!

by: rhianne

[Wedding Band]

This is a truly interesting posting. I enjoyed reading it. I think that the ring is no doubt absolutely priceless. :)