True or False?

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True or False?

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1avaland
Aug. 1, 2007, 7:10 pm

Perhaps some of you can explain this to me. My daughter says that her British boyfriend told her that in the UK a woman takes off her engagement ring (and no longer wears it) after she gets married, only wearing her wedding ring. This, he says, is why one doesn't spend gobs of money on an engagement ring.

He also says that marriage is thought of in religious terms in the UK, rather than in broad secular or civic terms as it is in the US. He says there is no civil benefits to marriage in the UK as there are in the US.

Now, how true is this?

2openset
Aug. 1, 2007, 8:52 pm

Well, according to Wikipedia, there are some civil benefits to marriage in the UK.

3Foxhunter
Bearbeitet: Aug. 2, 2007, 2:58 am

Diese Nachricht wurde vom Autor gelöscht.

4Barry
Aug. 2, 2007, 5:24 am

I'm with Foxhunter on this one. I didn't spend too much money on the engagement ring but then we were also about to buy a house and I had just started a new job. I thought that traditionally it should be a months salary. My wife doesn't always wear both rings but she does still wear her engagement ring sometimes. With three small children she's more worried about hurting them with it or it just getting snagged on something. She lost one of the stones last year and doesn't like the idea of losing another one. We also have the concept of an eternity ring and theories on when to buy that are multiple, first child, last child, 10 years of marriage, 1 year of marriage etc. My plan is just to surprise her one day. I know plenty of women who wear all three at once, strangely enough my wife keeps introducing me to them...

As for the religious nature of marriage, there is a bit more to this although as foxhunter says it's very dependent on specific cultures. With the introduction of Civil Partnerships there is more and more discussion of the various methods of comittment and their relative merits. One of the key impacts is with inheritance tax. There is no inheritance tax between legal partners (marriage, civil partnership etc) but there is between anyone else over a certain limt. Other impacts concern subjects such as pensions and it may affect how much money you can borrow for a mortgage so it is important to consider carefully. The benefits are undoubtedly different to the US but they are there all the same.

5miss_read
Aug. 2, 2007, 6:01 am

I think people do spend far less on engagement rings in the UK than they do in the US, but it's nothing to do with women taking their rings off once married. I've never heard of that practice but, as Foxhunter, says, it may be true of some specific cultures here.

For what it's worth, the US three months' salary rule for engagement rings would probably strike most Brits as completely over the top and unnecessary.

Many (if not most) of my married friends here in the UK have had civil wedding ceremonies, rather than church ones, so there's no way to really generalise about the religious nature of weddings.

6avaland
Bearbeitet: Aug. 3, 2007, 9:16 pm

Thank you for your input. It's an interesting comparison.

7kiwidoc
Sept. 30, 2007, 5:43 pm

My mom is English and has worn her engagement and wedding ring since marriage without taking them off. I have a combo ring - twisted design - that serves as both.

I do understand that in Canada, where I now live, more people are living together than marrying, so unless this is different in the UK, it seems that the issue of rings is becoming archaic!?!

8AllieW
Okt. 5, 2007, 9:33 am

To a certain extent this may be a generational thing. This fella's assertion may have been true 50 years ago (when it was also the case that many men didn't have a wedding ring at all, either), but it isn't really now. I wear both my engagement ring and my wedding ring (although on different hands since they both have a stone and look odd worn together).

And some people just like to be different. Some friends of mine exchanged watches instead of rings at their wedding and so neither of them has a wedding ring!

9Hermee
Nov. 16, 2008, 4:12 pm

Just wondering if you've considered the fact that your daughter's boyfriend - and I mean this well because he could be a truly sweet guy - might be either a cheapskate so has made this up to avoid paying for an engagement ring, or is not very well off so cannot afford both? Since marriage is meant to be a lifetime commitment, if the former is the case, perhaps this is a sign that your daughter should reconsider. Of course, he may have been misinformed as well.

10Booksloth
Nov. 17, 2008, 10:11 am

Misinformed for sure. Why would anybody simply stop wearing a perfectly good engagement ring? Mine hasn't been off my finger (along with my wedding ring) for 33 years and that applies also to every single person I know over here. Traditionally, our engagement rings are more decorative and more expensive than our wedding rings (which, until quite recently, were usually a fairly simple band of gold). I do know several people who, because they were very short of money at the time, or because - for whatever reason - the wedding followed very quickly after the engagement, didn't bother with an engagement ring. If that's your choice that's absolutely fine. In fact, now that a woman's worth is (hopefully!) no longer judged by her marital status, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if the tradition is more frequently dispensed with these days. I have a friend who has always refused to wear either as she claims, quite rightly, that her marital status is nobody else's business. She follows that statement with 'and I wouldn't wear one through my nose either', and good for her.

As regards the issue of secular re religious marriage, your daughter's boyfriend is very nearly right. Until a few years ago a marriage was only legal if it was conducted in a church or a register office. Because many (not all, I'm sure) register offices can be pretty soulless places, it was mainly only the divorced (who could only be married in church if they had a very sympathetic minister) who tended to use that option. Nowadays, however, you can marry in any 'building that is licenced for the purpose'. That includes many hotels, stately homes etc - though not, as I believe is the case in the US, private homes. This has meant that church weddings are somewhat on the decline and tend to be the choice of either the religious or those who just happen to like churches.

As far as civil benefits are concerned, the law has finally come round to the idea that many people choose not to marry and this is apparent as far as tax and separation laws are concerned. However, laws change - and there is a fairly strong movement from the right of people wanting to encourage 'traditional' family structures. I suspect - and indeed, hope - that couples who live together will continue to have the same rights as those who are married but I wouldn't count on things necessarily staying the same when it comes to taxes. If the Conservatives get in again there is at least a chance they may try to push ahead with plans to give tax breaks to those who are wed.

I don't know how old your daughter's boyfriend is avaland, but do remember that the very young aren't always the best-informed when it comes to these things. Both law and marriage are the subject of a lot of urban myths amomg the young!

11MyopicBookworm
Nov. 17, 2008, 10:56 am

I concur with those above who think the original boyfriend is either ill-informed or trying to pull a fast one.

Like my mother, my wife wears both rings most of the time (but takes her engagement ring off at night so as not to take chunks out of herself or me with the little pointy bits). I don't wear my engagement ring any more, but that's because I've got short fingers and it's a bit uncomfortable to wear both. Being male, I was highly unusual in wearing an engagement ring anyway.

>5 miss_read:
I hadn't come acros the "three-months'-salary" rule, and yes, I do think it's completely insane. (Perhaps it is the result of hard marketing by manufacturers to over-materialistic consumers, like the extravagant custom of having hordes of both male and female attendants in expensive matching outfits.) I'm sure that if I'd spent that much, my wife would have broken off the engagement on the grounds that she couldn't marry anyone so financially irresponsible! What I spent was certainly not more than a month's salary (though I earned it in extra freelance work). I think the whole wedding, including the honeymoon, probably came in at less than three months' salary!

12andyl
Nov. 17, 2008, 11:09 am

There are regional and cultural differences. My dad has never worn a ring*. My mum only wore her wedding ring. However I would view people who make a categorical statement about this is the way it is with no wiggle room as being under-informed.

* Quite a number of men (especially those who are of the older generation) don't. I think male wedding rings are a rather recent innovation in the UK.

13Booksloth
Nov. 17, 2008, 11:38 am

Though following my own question about why anyone would stop wearing a ring, I've just thought of one possibility and that is the (IMO) crazy tradition of proposing having already bought the ring without consultation. It's now my guess that your daughter's boyfriend's father may have done just this. If my bloke had turned up with something hideous that looked as if it came out of a Xmas cracker I think the excuse 'It's traditional to dump the engagement ring once you get the wedding one' is a very tactful way around it. (And, I don't know about other countries, but over here you can tell men pretty much anything you like about jewellery - they won't know!) Shopping together for the ring after the proposal has been accepted may not sound quite as romantic but it does at least ensure that you get one you like!

14Medellia
Nov. 17, 2008, 12:08 pm

#13: After I got engaged, the invariable response I got from women when I showed them my ring was, "Oooh! Aaaah! You helped him pick it out, didn't you?" :) (Did I ever!)

15MyopicBookworm
Nov. 19, 2008, 4:34 pm

>12 andyl: Yes, I think wedding rings for men are recent. My dad hasn't got one. I don't know any other man who wore an engagement ring.

I didn't buy the ring in advance, but I did choose one, and the one she eventually went for was only slightly different.

16Booksloth
Nov. 19, 2008, 5:18 pm

#12/15 My husband has got one but he refused it at the time. He finally changed his mind and decided he wanted one for our 25th anniversary. By which time I didn't have the same excuse as he did for getting a cheap one and it cost a FORTUNE!!

17Barry
Nov. 25, 2008, 10:52 am

just chipping in again completely non-data correcting but I wear a ring, my dad wears a ring, he's over 70 and the grandfather that I remember always wore a ring. There may well be some regional variation on this....