Asymmetrical Information

Diamonds useless? Only if beauty is. Diamonds can be breathtakingly beautiful and can be handed down as a store of value, although it will be generations before their resale value equals the purchase price. And they are useful as a status symbol, which can confer real power.

Also, to say that men made the purchasing decisions in the Fifties - or any time - is naive. Women have always, in the main, been able to control household decisions, not least because men don't want to be bothered. Call me cynical, but I don't think the woman exists or did ever exist who abdicated power over spending decisions because she hadn't contributed cash to the household.

Diamonds are a common stone with an inflated value, and I don't even find them particularly attractive. I always point out to my kids that those commercials are trying to instill a false and hurtful worldview, where feelings are supposed to be expressed in dollars rather than actions and words, and where you judge others by how much money they spend on you, not how well they treat you in daily life.

I have fond memories of 1999, when the The Family Guy forever shredded those "musical silouhette" commercials. I think I only saw one of those things ONCE during prime time for two years thereafter.

The only reason diamonds are expensive is because DeBeers maintains an illegal cartel in them. They buy them from brutal African warlords and dictators and then carefully limit the supply to keep prices up. They aren't very rare, relatively speaking. If there were a free market in diamonds, they wouldn't be nearly as expensive as rubies or emeralds, which are much cooling looking in my opinion. If I ever get married, I'm giving my girl one of those for an engagement ring.

diamonds ain't nothin but a signalling tool (just like degrees that aren't in engineering, medicine, science, divinity, or law)

course signalling tools are useful... as for there level of rarity.. I'd be interested to know the distribution of sizes... are they still very common in the 2c plus range?

you drop a 2c+ diamond on your fiancees hand, people notice... and unless the lady prefers emeralds or rubies, get her a diamond... you're not wearing it, ok... and none of this moral crap either... give her what she wants, and only what she wants... if you're not cool with that, find somoene who feels how you do...

and buy something thats at least 1c... (and no you can't get something thats flawed for brown... vvs1, C-E, perfect brilliant cut! and i'm a guy.. but that's what she'll like... course i come from something similar to jane's background.. so maybe that's not real world...

I just got engaged last week, and I agree with Libertarian that it's a total status thing. The first thing people (especially female-type people) do after you tell them you're engaged is to look at the ring. My ring is big enough to qualify as an official "rock", and I've actually been a bit uncomfortable around with friends and family with smaller rings. I feel like it's shouting, "hey, look, we're better off than you are!" My house has a similar value as a status indicator, and I get very similar half-admiring, half-envious comments on it too. It's sheerly a function of having a ring, and a house, that are several degrees nicer than those of my friends and family. I'm not personally into female status games, so it makes me squirmy, but plenty of women care very much about having a nicer ring, or car, or house, than the next-door neighbor. I think the desire for big shiny jewelry has much less to do with the Stepford-wife lifestyle Megan describes in her post than with having a bigger diamond than any of the other Junior Leaguers.

Also, re non-diamond engagement rings, rubies and sapphires are OK, but emeralds and opals are too soft for a ring that's worn every day. My mom's engagement ring from her second marriage is an emerald, and you wouldn't believe how easily they scratch and chip even if you're careful with them. Diamonds at least have the advantage of durability.

Anyone who uses the cut and carat of a diamond as the starting basis for marital harmony is a soulless ghoul bound for eternal torment and damnation.

When I propose I'm going to use one of those plastic rings with the big candy on it. Ring-Pops, I think they call them. With my Bertram Wooster-like dread of matrimony, I figure it's a surefire way to get her to say no.

I hate those diamond ads.

There was a radio ad a few years ago that was almost a parody of itself, it went like this:

WIFE: (Hateful, shrewish fishwife voice) Aren’t you dressed yet? Are we going OUT to celebrate our anniversary or not?

HUSBAND: (teasing voice) Is that what you’re wearing tonight?

WIFE: (REALLY hateful, shrewish fishwife voice) Yes, what’s wrong with it...you’ve got THAT look in your eye....(you bastard)

HUSBAND: I just thought it needed THIS!

WIFE: Wha...OH DIAMONDS! (Totally breathless) Oh honey, they’re beautiful! You are the sweetest man...I love you! Let’s stay home and celebrate our anniversary tonight.

HUSBAND: Do you mean that?

WIFE: (Breathless sexy panting voice) Oh......Yessss........

The basic message is: Men, turn that little frigid sexless bitch you’re stuck with into a an adoring little whore...all it takes is a shiny rock from us!

I hate those diamond ads!

I hate the whole diamond industry too. So I got my wife a sapphire engagement ring. Of course, with the built-to-spec ring, platinum prongs (it was a rather large marquee cut; easy to lose if the prongs lack strength) and spiffy little trillion diamonds on the side, it amounted to what I would have spent on a diamond anyway. But much more beautiful, and she gets a lot of remarks on it.

I like rubies and emeralds too, but emeralds are rather more easily cracked.

And bring in the matter replicator idea given in the music-piracy article following this one, and a diamond is now worth the carbon it's made of, plus overhead. Gold and platinum are still worth the same. Unless you're talking about something that builds up matter from nothing, which is another proposition entirely. In a world where you can now buy synthetic sapphire in chunks weighing a pound or more, and where the growing of large sheets of synthetic diamond is just around the corner, it may well be the more complex stones with the odd impurities might be the most sought-after. After all, without the impurities, rubies and sapphires are just hunks of the same kind of mineral.

Hey, I remember that Family Guy takeoff too! "DIAMONDS. She'll Pretty Much Have To." I just about busted a gut laughing.

The opposite commercials do exist as well (at least up here in Canada). There's one playing right now where a couple is shown in a variety of romantic settings (a nice restaurant, a horse-drawn carriage in the park, etc.). Each time, the woman says, "I love you!" and the man says, "Er, uh...um."

Finally, we see the guy unwrapping a Christmas present that turns out to be a gigantic plasma-screen TV. He turns to her and in a sultry growl says, "I looooove YOU."

See? Women can buy love too!

I need to stick up for the corporate lawyers of the world -- and their wives! I am a corporate lawyer, and my wife is a teacher. She has not "ripped out any personality or ambition", even though her salary is a tenth of mine and she is content in her job. Perhaps some of these wives ENJOY what they do and who they are. Not everybody desires to go to B-school or work in the foreign service. Perhaps some women (and some men!) are merely content to be a teacher (or even just to keep a nice home) and to try to make their husbands happy. And thank God for that! They don't have to have anything "ripped out" in order to be that way...

Darlin', I think it's YOU who are getting a little cranky. First this, then the downloaders. You sure you're over that flu?

Me, of course, I agree that I'd be much more likely to melt for a significant other who brought me a dishwasher than a diamond (though I was looking at a Bell & Ross watch the other day that woulda put me in a better mood), but mainly I'm worried about you, Megan!

One nitpick - nothing has intrinsic utility. Not diamonds. Not anything.

Has anybody thought about the security aspect? I make, er, good money. If I bought a ring woth two-three months salary(their guideline), I'd have to worry. I don't want her wearing a ring that makes it worth somebody's while to cut off her finger to get it. Why not spend that for something with greater utility/

I've long been amazed at the utter inability of the jewelry industry to market to men, or specifically, to make shopping for jewelry something that men want to do. Men and women shop differently; there have been studies that document this.
Prefaced by the obligatory disclaimer about generalities blah blah blah:
On the whole, women view shopping as more of a communal event than men do. Women are drawn to crowded shopping centers. Men view the crowds as an obstacle to getting in, accomplishing their goal, and getting out as soon as possible. We'd also rather not twalk to a salespaeron if it is not necessary.
Put it this way: imagine if electronics were sold in stores that didn't list the model, specs or price of any of the merchandise. In order to find what you wanted, you would HAVE TO talk to a salesperson. Then if you found out that their selection or prices sucked, you would have wasted about 20 minutes waiting for attention, talking things through, and making a polite getaway. As much as men love to buy gadget toys, sales would plummet. But no, electronics stores know their customer base, and understand that if we can look at the models, compare specs and prices by reading a few signs, we'll be happier.

Yet every jewelry store I know displays its merchandise without price tags, without information on carats, or grading, or anything remotely useful. You walk in, are forced to talk to some annoying staff member just to find out if it's even worth thinking about buying there.

Let someone opened a jewelry chain that said to men, "Come buy jewelry here for your wives and girlfriends. All items are clearly marked with identifying information, specs, and prices." Every straight man in America would shop there.

I am not fond of diamonds myself. My mother has a 2 carat natural light yellow saphire that has my name on it. Wearing a rock on your hand that is the price of a car or a large part of a house is stupid. A diamond ring shows little imagination or creativity, just the competiveness found in our culture today.

My lovely wife of 27 years LIKES jewelry. I am seriously considering buying her a rather expensive diamond ring for Christmas. Not because I'll Get Some (tm), not to show off what a good earner I am (we work together and make exactly the same money), but simply because she will really really like the diamond. It will make her happy.

Making her happy is (always) my goal.

Oh, goodness, I wasn't trying to say that corporate lawyer's wives are all soulless jellyfish, or women shouldn't like diamonds.

Those commercials are playing into the fantasy lives of little girls. That's why you never see the man. . . the better for the women to project their fantasy guy, or to tap into the faceless nonentity who filled her earliest romantic imaginings.

I am perhaps a little jaded, but having hung out with investment bankers and white shoe lawyers and their wives, I am shocked at the decisions some of these women have made. Not to stay home; I know plenty of homemakers I adore. Nor to accept lower paying professions to which they are committed. But there is an astonishingly high percentage of women whose lives consist of nothing but ferrying themselves from shop to shop, with intervals of ferrying the children from activity to activity. They have no interests outside of their appearance and some incredibly vague platitudes about charity; they do not make their own home; they do not care for their own children. Their entire existence is dedicated to constructing an elegant facade to show the world how successful their husband is. Some of those wives have jobs, even successful jobs, but everything takes a back seat to the big earner. I can't explain it, exactly, but even my male friends in investment banking and corporate law firms will readily admit that it describes a large number of the wives. (Not all of my friends, mind you, find it as creepy as I do. . . probably because they've never been considered for the position of Investment Banking Wife). But it wasn't supposed to be a general indictment of all women who stay home, or make less money than their husbands. . . just the ones who have eradicated all traces of individuality in order to make themselves a better mirror for their husbands' ambitions. On the other hand, I probably wouldn't have liked them before they got married either. Or, for that matter, their husbands.

As for liking diamonds, I think that's fine. I was responding to the commercials, not issuing a general critique of diamond buying. I own diamonds, and I like them. I just don't wear expensive jewelry because I tend to lose it. And I'm afraid getting diamonds from a man never made me feel complete as a woman the way the commercials promised.

Jane, your only saying that cause you haven't gotten one of those diamond rings from a REAL MAN.

Thats right baby, you know what I'm talking about. Trips to Vienna, romantic walks through five hundred year old cities, and a Diamond ring so shiny and big, when you look at the people's shadow, you can see the jewelry clearly.

Thats how it is. At least, how the commercials tell me it is....

Paul: Hehe, tell me about it. I was watching that episode in a dormitory room with four other guys, so our collective reaction had considerable dynamic.

Specifically, we were all on the floor for several minutes before finally recovering.

and of which he himself takes no enjoyment outside of yours.

My fiancee and I were recently talking about what we want to do with our pooled money (not a lot as he's a pastor) and we really thought about what we want to base our marriage on... a material symbol or a life-principle kind of symbol? Definitely, the latter. My present thinking is why not get a cheaper stone (synthetic that looks real, for example) and give the rest away to an organization like "Shared Hope International" (a refuge for Southeast Asian women and girls who have been trafficked as prostitutes and worse)? What do really want our marriage to be about? Money/status or a vision to transform this world into a better place for everyone to live in? Right, so we buy a gargantuan diamond and fund DeBeer's blood-killing cartel... OR we go with a modestly-priced (but pretty!) rock that symbolizes our committment to each other and then spend the rest on what we really want our life together to be about... glorifying God, drawing others to know Jesus Christ, and making this world a better place to live in. Meaning-making in this world is really what you determine it to be... don't be afraid to start a new tradition, to express what you believe in and let others know. I mean, how cool will it be to have someone ask me about my non-traditional ring and then I have an opportunity to tell them about "Shared Hope International"... about Jesus Christ, about my love for my husband, and about what marriage really MEANS to us :)

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