Monday, June 11, 2007

Byron York and Rich Lowry contemplate their Buckley Death Pool times

Dude, I'll check out the piece at Slate, but the diamond engagement ring thing is a social convention that will never, ever, ever, ever die. If it was a fur coat, there might — might — be a chance at killing the tradition. But not the rock. Looked at objectively, it's an absurd custom. I remember talking with the Fair Jessica about it. She was far less invested in getting a diamond engagement ring than most women. She understood how silly it is to spend huge amounts of scarce just-starting-out resources on some crystallized coal. And it wasn't even the money for me. I heartily offered to buy the equivalent amount of stock in De Beers. It's just absurd to lock up precious resources in something you'll never sell — hence the genius of the diamond business. But, at the end of the day, no one will believe you that you didn't get the rock on principle. Her friends won't. Your friends won't. Her family won't. No one. In the spirit of misery loves company, your guy friends — who are deeply invested in defending their decision to get the rock for their wives — will give you a brutal time about how cheap you are. Her friends are similarly invested. Everyone is.

A few people will refuse to do it on principle, but their heresy will only reinforce the custom. A few men will decline because they simply can't afford it. But if they ever find themselves living more prosperous lives they'll atone at the jewelry store eventually.

The diamond is the modern updating of the mastodon hide and the shiny rock. It's a sign, a ritual, a public declaration of commitment grounded in ancient custom and instinctual drives older than democracy, monotheism and the wheel. Of course, it's irrational. Chesterton may have been wrong that the purely rational man will not marry, but surely the purely rational man would never buy a diamond engagement ring. But we are not purely rational creatures. Diamonds are forever. Period.