Mens Engagement Bands are Becoming More Popular

View PDF | Print View
by: Ralph Watkins
Total views: 12
Word Count: 511
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 Time: 10:14 AM
0 comments

Men's Engagement Bands are Becoming More Popular

The traditional engagement has always consisted of a man proposing marriage to a woman, offering her an engagement ring, and she either accepts or not. If she accepts, she wears the ring and the man walks around with no jewelry to identify him as ‘taken'. Over the past several years, some European men have been wearing engagement bands, and the trend is slowly making its way into the United States.

Now, as engagements sometimes last a few years, more women want their future husbands to be marked as engaged, and men themselves want to show that they are going to be married. Some brides-to-be think of it as sexist and unfair that they show that they are engaged, while men appear single until the day of the wedding itself. So the trend began. Now women are buying engagement bands for men, too.

This trend is ever growing, becoming more and more common worldwide. Now, many men are embracing the idea of wearing engagement bands, and many women are happy to see the playing field becoming more level.

It use to be that if a woman wanted to marry, she felt she had to wait until the object of her desire got around to proposing to her. Once she decided she was ready, she had no choice but to hang on, wondering when and if he would ever pull out a ring and ask her to spend the rest of her life with him.

But these days, it is not uncommon for a woman to take matters into her own hands and pop the question herself. In a situation like that, what becomes of the tradition of the engagement ring? If the man accepts the proposal, is he then required to go out and purchase a ring for his fiancé? Maybe. But according to UK jeweler H Samuel, if a woman proposes to a man, she should also buy him an engagement ring.

"The men's engagement ring is a clear message to everyone that a man is going to be married and also works perfectly for civil partnerships," says a spokesperson for the jeweler.

Is this just a clever idea by a jeweler to sell more rings? Possibly. But H Samuel says that more and more women have been requesting such a ring and they are only too happy to oblige.

While most men probably wouldn't take issue with wearing a ring that indicates they are engaged, I think some might have a problem with what is supposed to happen after the wedding. Unlike a woman, who wears her engagement ring alongside her wedding ring, male engagement ring etiquette dictates that the man must move his ring to the other hand after the wedding. This means he is now wearing two rings. I don't know about your husband, but most barely tolerate the one ring he is supposed to wear. There is no way he would wear two.

About the Author

Ralph Watkins is the owner of the Men's Wedding bands where you are given a different choice for your wedding bands, or dress ring.