Wedding Traditions #2- The Ring

What symbolizes weddings and marriage more than the ring? Indeed, although wedding rings have gotten more ornate over the centuries, that simple band of gold is still synonymous with the joining of the bride and groom into a married couple.

Wedding rings are a very old European custom that has spread throughout the world. We know for a fact that wedding rings were exchanged in Ancient Rome and were most likely used in Greece and Italy long before that. But ancient wedding rings had a much different meaning than what we think of them today.

Back in the day, weddings were more of a contract between two families than the culmination of love between two people. Marriages were contracted to protect fortunes and bloodlines and could often be used as a means of social advancement. This holds true for the elite and the common people. You did not want to "marry down." That was social suicide. Wedding rings were simple bands (not unlike modern ones) cast out of metal. The more affluent the family, the more expensive the metal. And affluent families would have the last names of the bride and the groom as well as the wedding date engraved inside the ring to show when the two families were contracted together.

In addition to symbolizing the junction of two families, the wedding ring also symbolized the sharing of goods. The bride brought a dowry to the relationship. It could be money, land, animals etc. The amount of the dowry was directly proportional to how rich her family was. The bride also brought her own personal clothing and household goods. The ring was provided by the groom's family to show their wealth (again, the more affluent the family, the more expensive the metal used in the ring with gold as the pinnacle of success).

Have people always worn wedding bands on their left hands? Nope. Traditionally (and in many cultures even today) the wedding band was worn on the ring finger of the RIGHT hand. The Latin word for right roughly translates into our modern word for dexterity. So you wore your ring on your right, or more dexterous, hand. By the same token, the Latin word for left translates to the modern word sinister. So it was evil to wear it on your left. Anything "left" was considered evil. As a leftie, I have a huge problem with that.

However, there were people who believed that the so-called "love vein" ran directly from the left ring finger to the heart. Once love began to play more of a role in marriage, people began wearing wedding bands on that finger and for Western Europe and its descendents, the tradition stuck.

In modern times, the wedding ring is not always a traditional gold band. Regular gold sort of fell out of fashion in the latter part of the 20th century so now bands of white gold and platinum are much more popular. Also, it is nothing unusual to see wedding bands dripping with gemstones nowadays.

And it's not even just wedding bands anymore. Engagement rings have been around for quite sometime. Originally they were considered betrothal rings. A betrothal was just as binding as a marriage in most cases so a betrothal ring cemented the deal until an official wedding ceremony could be held. Now we have the promise ring- typically given when the relationship becomes serious (sort of a pre-engagement engagement ring I guess), the eternity ring- a more elaborate version of the wedding band given after X number of years of wedded bliss (wonder how many of those are actually given today?), and the mother's ring- where a husband gives his wife a ring with his, hers and their children's birthstones to celebrate how a couple has become a family.

In case you are wondering, for me, the perfect ring set would be an emerald cut diamond (the bigger the better) for an engagement ring and a plain band for the wedding ring. And yes, despite the more modern inclinations, HE would be wearing one too. I'm not marrying anybody who won't wear a wedding band too. Now if I could just find him...