House of Eratosthenes

“‘A Diamond is Forever’ and Other Fairy Tales: The Relationship between Wedding Expenses and Marriage Duration,” a new study from Andrew M. Francis and Hugo M. Mialon, isn’t just one of the first looks at how wedding spending correlates with marriage duration — it’s also an indictment of the persuasive powers of the wedding industry.

The pair surveyed 3,000 U.S. adults who had once been married to a member of the opposite sex and discovered you should…

Alright, and from then on the article reads like a tome put together for the benefit of people who like to be told what to do. Not much about how the data was crunched, how it might be misinterpreted, how the researchers might have had an ulterior motive for formulating the study.

Not that I need it (you can get it here anyway). My personal experience supports the thesis. Which made it a bit awkward when I learned about this, by way of a Facebook FOAF I don’t know myself, who put up a post making use of the militant-feminist cadence of “Oh how much I hate this thing, come gather around and help me hate it.” Does that mean the FOAF is a mil-fem? Probably not; knowing what I do know about our mutual friend, I count that as unlikely, albeit possible. But regardless, I don’t think my participation was any more welcome in that circle, than it is in a typical mil-fem round-table.

Huge Ring The point I had arrived to contribute is about the “lurking variable.” Big rings do not directly cause divorces; they do not even impose a debt on the household, which is then crushed under it, resulting in a divorce. Perhaps the story actually is that simple, here & there, but it takes a lot more than five grand to cause the kind of financial stress that results in a divorce. It’s the mindset that is the problem. They call this “champagne taste on a beer budget,” and unfortunately, that phrase is used more commonly in planning the wedding than it’s used afterward, when it starts to cause the real damage.

I eventually bowed out. It didn’t result in the horseshoe-arrangement of “everyone against Morgan” this time, but it was mostly women who, in sum, didn’t manage to accumulate too much curiosity about the male point of view — and outside of that, I had nothing to contribute. It was just a hen-fest full of hens interested in the hen-fest and nothing else. And, the hen-fest was pockmarked silly with comments that could best be summarized as: “This is the way it worked in my particular case, so logically that can only mean that’s the way it works for everybody else.” That may have been the second-most popular type of comment, giving way to the unquestioned champion which was: “Naff off, it’s none of your goddamn business how much ‘our’ rings cost ‘us’.”

Which leads me to my observation: Over on Planet Woman, “How big is your engagement/wedding ring” seems to draw exactly the same response as “How much do you make” inspires over here, on Planet Man. Hmmmm…fuck off.

In both cases though, it’s a selective fuck-off. In both cases, we want to know where the inquiring party is going with this. This is easily proven: If the size of the ring is nobody’s business and they need to just go stick it, then why have a big one? If the narrative is different, the fuck-off falls away. Ooh, you’re getting married? How much does he care? SHOW ME THAT RING! That changes everything. It’s still none of your business, but she’ll show the ring — holy smokes, you’d better get out of the way as she shows the ring. No “none of your business” here. Just as, if you’re crafting a narrative that a man must be very hard-working and have good judgment and know how to delegate…so how much does he make again? He’ll probably tell you. You get told to MYOB when the narrative you’re crafting is “I want to make sure you’re giving enough back.” There, too, all of a sudden it’s none of your business; even though, on the same question in a different context, you’re perfectly welcome to ask, and to know.

In spite of the popular fuck-off, women must be consciously aware that something else has to be sacrificed to make the ring big. The first Mrs. Freeberg certainly was aware. She was very keenly tuned in to how much it cost. Not that it cost that much, unless you compare it to how much I made at the time. But that’s what really mattered. She correlated it, kinda like the tax-man. And that example is unimportant, next to what it represents: There are a lot of prospective brides doing the same thing. How much does he make, and how much does the ring cost compared to what he makes.

I couldn’t make a marriage last under such a mindset. Or, rather, I “didn’t”; it wasn’t too long before I lost interest, and I doubt a higher level of interest would have changed the outcome.

The mindset at work has to do with the making of a household. The question that is being asked is “How much is he spending,” meaning, “By how much is he diminishing himself to give me this ring”; but the pragmatic ramifications of it are, “By how much is my household diminishing itself so I can have this ring.” The comment that would be truly unwelcome in the hen-fest, although it is probably closer to the truth than anything else said, is that this is really all about self-destructive behavior. The women, wisely, whether or not they know what they want, know exactly what it is they seek to avoid: A man who does not care. They seek to avoid apathy.

As I learned all those years ago, if there is anything a prospective groom needs to avoid in a chosen bride, with equal consciousness and zeal, it is: Self-destructive behavior.

So, yeah. Smaller, less expensive rings. It is no guarantee of a long and happy marriage, just as a more gaudy bauble is a guarantee of a shorter or more tumultuous one. But, the correlation is there. And the reason for the correlation, is there.

We got married on the cheap. Neither of us wanted any of the un necessary bullshit. We took a vacation to see both families (Wyoming to Indiana, then to Minnesota) and got married in the midst of quite a few of my wonderful wife’s friends. We deliberately skipped over a lot of the things everyone “must” do. The fact we used almost no money did not stop this from being an important (wonderful) occasion in my life. It was not a ring from a crackerjack box, but that was the idea we pushed. One pair of friends had wrote their own vows. What a wonderful idea. We did it. Another couple of friends provided a really neat place. How neat, we used that spot. Another had become a minister. Yes, he was our minister. Literally the only things I got was the neatest woman in the world, and some neat memories. Its thirty six years later and she is even neater than she was then. How much you spend or do not spend does not have much to do with it. Marriage is a really tough job. Working at it, learning about it and then doing those things you have found out. Discussing stuff before it gets done. Making plans together. Finding out what each others talents are . . . and recognizing how much we don’t know that we though we knew. Am married to an absolutely wonderful woman. This is about the time when so many women say you are such a wonderful man. It pisses many of them off when I say, “No, I am married to a wonderful woman.”
- Theo | 10/10/2014 @ 21:02
Just a simple gold wedding band for both, I was a seaman in the Navy with no money for glitter. We made it, five kids, seven grandkids, 46 years of marriage and only 1 trip to Disneyworld, We made our own priorities and never much went with the crowd. Worked out for us and I advise each couple to do what feels right for them, never mind the horde-think. It helped that I married the most wonderful girl in the world though.
- Open other end | 10/11/2014 @ 04:40
I can’t say that this article correlates with my own experience; I can compare both my own marriage and that of one of my best friend.

My wife and I got married fairly inexpensively; she had a ring that was a family heirloom (100 years old). My best man worked in the diamond district in downtown LA, and ‘upgraded’ the diamond in it – and didn’t charge me for it as his wedding gift to me. I got a simple gold band (I didn’t want anything fancy.) My wife made her own wedding gown (she’s a great seamstress). A relative paid for the flowers as their wedding gift to us, another relative paid for the reception hall, another for the catering, dj, etc. My wife and I basically only paid the cost for the priest and the church we were married in ($300), and the airfare/hotel for the honeymoon, and I had the tux rental. We had a great wedding which didn’t break the bank.

My friend however, was far better off financially than I was, and bought his fiancée a ring with a good sized rock on it. When he proposed, she accepted, but when she showed it off to her friends they all commented on how ‘small’ it was compared to theirs. She went back to him and told him he needed to trade it in for a larger stone. I told him at that the time that this was a bad sign, and that it looked like she was marrying his wallet and not him, but he went ahead and upsized the ring anyway.

Now we’ve both been married for over 20 years.
- Wamphyr | 10/11/2014 @ 07:45
Nothing says “Wow! What a trinket!” like a gaudy, overvalued, piece of conspicuous consumption.
Display and security of accessories , in ALL the right places, with all the right people, is high maintenance too!
- CaptDMO | 10/12/2014 @ 02:31
“We got married on the cheap”. Yah, that post was mine. Four daughters. First was a valedictorian, College. Second had some learning disabilities (Extreme lack of confidence) and ended up with a 3.83 GPA, College. Third was not a valedictorian because she graduated in January with perfect grades, College. At this point we thought we knew how to raise girls. Pride goeth. Our youngest was a rather extreme example of rebellion. Smart as a whip but had trouble accepting the world as it is. It was a roller coaster until she got herself on track.. Thirty years later my wife picked out the ring she wanted. Am lucky we picked each other. Its still a tough job.
- Theo | 10/13/2014 @ 06:02

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The Bigger the Rock, the Shorter the MarriageFriday, October 10th, 2014

The Bigger the Rock, the Shorter the Marriage
Friday, October 10th, 2014