Engagement Rings are Proof of a Man's Love

Today a colleague forwarded us Slate's "Diamonds are a Girls Worst Friend" article from the e-zine's wedding edition. In this article, the intrepid Meghan O'Rourke says that engagement rings are wrong because, essentially, they are old-fashioned, un-egalitarian, and put women into sexual slavery.
Despite all the potential perils apparently associated with engagement rings, we think it is much, much more dangerous to marry a guy who doesn't buy you an engagement ring. But you don't have to believe Bridezilla. Just ask Miss Britney Spears.

Britney's Self-Bought Ring: The Beginning of the End

I believe in Miss O'Rourke's utopia- in order to avoid sexual slavery and prove we have truly evolved as feminists- we would take the Britney Spears' route of becoming wildly successful and marrying the first man who struck our fancy with no thought of "security," "sugardaddies" or other such outdated notions.
Like Miss Spears, we would perhaps even propose marriage ourselves and pay for our own engagement rings.And what sort of amazing vibrant marriage would result from such an action? What sort of upstanding mate would we attract? We take a page from Britney's sad story to find out.
A Man Who Has No Respect For Sentiment and Tradition. As we look at the disastrous marriage of Miss Britney Spears, we see that a guy who is too lazy to buy you and engagement ring will be equally loath to take you out on Valentine's Day (Federline spent the holiday with his boys in Vegas) or buy you flowers on Mother's Day (K-Fed spent the day with his other baby's mother). Federline also notoriously spent tons of weekends away partying and acting irresponsibly, a far cry from pitching in on dirty dishes and diaper duty.
A Man Who Has No Respect for your Money or Career. Ostensibly, Spears loved Federline because he wasn't intimidated by her or her career. Nevertheless he had no respect for her hard work, as he stood by and let her purchase an expensive engagement ring for herself and then proceeded to blow millions of dollars of her hard-earned money throughout their marriage on a flashy car and his failed record, to name a few things, until she eventually had to put him on an allowance.
A Man who Has no Respect for the Sanctity of Marriage. If a man has to do no work to secure the marriage proposal, he will certainly do no work during the marriage itself. As we can see from Spederline's tumultuous and fleeting two years together, a man who won't spring for a ring is less committed and therefore, more likely to leave when the going gets tough.
In conclusion, we find Slate's assertions about the stigmas of engagement rings anti-climactic and logically ludicrous. The engagement ring sets a precedent for the entire marriage that the man believes the woman is worth investing in, sacrificing for, working for and waiting for.We at Bridezilla beseech you to realize in advance that a big sparkly ring from a man is a lot less hazardous to your health than the shaved-head tendecies and breakdowns in sanity that result when you BYOR).
We hate being right about this, but unfortunately, we still are!

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Tags:  Bridezilla , Engagement Rings , Meghan O'Rourke , Slate

Posted by Miss B on 06/12/07 in Bridezilla Big Day Advice