The current narrative is more along the lines of, "How much work should your fiancee spend on declaring his commitment to you?" The societal answer is at least two months. Salary is the convenient measure for this. The ring is the communication medium.
I got my wife a custom designed ring with a fairly large moissanite stone for ~$1,200 all in, and we spent about $2,000-$3,000 on the wedding itself. My wife actually would have been upset with me if I had gotten her a real diamond. Not so much because of concerns over conflict (though she did care about that) but because she felt that spending that much on a useless stone was outright stupid.
Might be an American thing? My parents spent about 1 month worth of my dad's salary on two wedding rings a long time ago. My dad actually wanted to buy a far more expensive ring for my mom, but she insisted to keep it simple and "cheap" and "unproblematic" to wear. Same story in the rest of the family.
Friends (usually a lot younger than my parents) spend even less on rings, I'd estimate 400-600 EUR per ring from what I keep hearing.
I've heard about that two months rule before, in American TV shows and movies, never thought about it. Now I wonder if it's really an American thing, or if people around me are just cheapskates :P
>These two achievements - making the diamond ring an essential part of getting married and dictating how much a man should pay - make it one of the most successful bits of marketing ever undertaken, says Dr TC Melewar, professor of marketing and strategy at Middlesex University.
>"They invented a tradition which captured some latent desire to mark this celebration of love," he says. Once the tradition had been created, they could put a price on it - such as a month or two's salary. And men, says Melewar, would pay whatever was expected because it was a "highly emotive" purchase.
Of course, it's all optional, jewelery purchases are not a mandatory part of getting married, I (heterosexual woman) have been married for a decade and neither of us purchased any sort of jewelery.
It's the opposite in my opinion. The richer the social circle, the less people care about stuff like diamonds or 2 months salary (which I never even heard of outside of online discussions). A diamond ring is barely a notable expense for a dual six figure earning couple.
I'm sure the jewelry businesses were peddling it, but I don't recall it ever being mentioned amongst people as if it were a cultural thing. Then again, maybe women talk about this kind of stuff, whereas men don't.
