Meet the Millennial Women Buying Their Own Engagement Rings
Lauren was fine with buying her own ring. Her family? Not so much. Her dad, especially, was skeptical. “The first thing he said was, ‘I just want to make sure he can take care of you,’” Lauren recalls. She knew he meant financially, and she felt like she had to defend their situation. She told him that her partner was the most caring person in the world; maybe he couldn’t provide for her monetarily at the moment, but he supported her emotionally—and that meant much more to her.
Still, her father’s comment stuck. It made her question her decision to buy her own ring. She says it fits her current lifestyle—as a nomad, she doesn’t want to wear something she’ll be anxious about losing while traveling—but she’s game for an upgrade in the future. Right now, she still feels like she has to downplay the fact that she’s the primary earner in her relationship, especially when introducing her husband to people she’s nervous about impressing.Lauren is part of a growing number of young women who make more money than their male partners, and as a result, have taken on the role of engagement-ring-buyer and financial provider. While you wouldn’t know it from Instagram “we-did-a-thing” announcements, the number of women buying their own engagement rings has doubled from seven to 14 percent in recent years, with women spending around 33 percent more on their rings than men.
There’s this incredibly steeped patriarchal idea that women aren’t pursuers; they should be pursued, and the ring is part of that.
The wage gap is still a very real issue, but Gen Z and millennial women are narrowing it, with younger women in 22 cities making the same as or more than guys their age, according to Pew Research Center data. This is likely because women, in Gen Z and millennial generations especially, are getting college degrees at a higher rate than their male peers, which sets them up to earn more over their lifetime. Younger women are also forgoing or delaying having kids at higher rates, which helps keep their income steady.
All of this is great news for women’s financial independence, but somewhat-more-complicated news for those of us who were socially conditioned to believe that, in a straight relationship, the man should make more and be able to afford a nice engagement ring for his partner.
“I have feminist friends who are still like, ‘He needs to be the one to buy the ring and ask me,’” says Candice Maier, Ph.D., a licensed clinical therapist and associate professor in the Marriage & Family Therapy Program at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. “There’s this incredibly steeped patriarchal idea that women aren’t pursuers; they should be pursued, and the ring is part of that.”
On Reddit and Quora, posts with titles like, “Thoughts on brides buying their own engagement rings?” and “Has anybody bought their own engagement ring?” abound, with women nail-biting about whether it’s okay for them to make the purchase themselves and what it says about them and their partners. Most of the women who write these posts provide caveats about how their partners aren’t deadbeats—a defense that only needs to be deployed because of deeply entrenched beliefs around who should buy the ring.
To understand where these beliefs come from, it’s worth examining the history of engagement rings: They can be traced all the way back to Ancient Rome, where rings made of materials like bone and flint were worn to symbolize love and, unromantically, ownership, obedience, and business contracts, according to the Gemological Institute of America. In 850, Pope Nicholas I gave betrothal rings their more modern meaning, declaring that they represented a man’s financial sacrifice and intention to marry.
But the average engagement did not involve the exchange of an expensive ring until less than a century ago. As more diamonds were discovered in South Africa in the late 1800s, the stone lost its scarcity value and became commonplace. The British industrialists who owned the mines fixed this by creating De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., to control diamond supply and create a marketing strategy to reestablish the gem’s rarity and power. In the 1940s, De Beers launched their incredibly persuasive “A diamond is forever” campaign, running ads that made it clear that a successful, loving marriage was only guaranteed if a man spent one month’s salary (this later jumped arbitrarily to two, then three months’) on a diamond engagement ring for his fiancé. They loaned jewelry to movie stars—the OG influencers—and essentially birthed the first hellish installment of the wedding industrial complex.
Knowing the dark history and marketing-manufactured meaning of exorbitant rings can make the quintessential engagement seem much less appealing. But for a lot of people, the desire for a traditional proposal and money dynamic is somehow just still there. “Most of our parents modeled a relationship where the man made more, and that’s generally seen as socially acceptable,” says Beth Gulotta, a licensed mental health counselor, founder of NYC Therapeutic Wellness, and host of the podcast, Quiet the Clock. “Anything outside of that isn’t seen as normal, and there’s so much pressure for relationships to look and be a certain way. It’s baked into us.”
(Image credit: Future)
When Dana S. and her boyfriend were ready to get married, the fact that he couldn’t afford a ring was a major roadblock. Dana, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, wasn’t willing to wait until her partner was in a better place financially. She had a timeline—she was 27 and really wanted to be married before she turned 30—and she was determined to make it happen. Her then-boyfriend was 24 and making ten dollars an hour as an audio engineer; she was working as a researcher at a website and had a $45,000-a-year salary.
Trying to put together a classic proposal when she wasn’t in a textbook-gender-roles-relationship really stressed Dana out. Money was an issue all around; she wasn’t exactly making a ton, either, but she couldn’t let go of the idea of a traditional engagement. “Especially before we were married, I never felt like, ‘Oh, I have a job, I should pay for everything.’ I had an old-school mentality drilled into me that things should be split equally or taken care of by the guy, and I didn’t want to be taken advantage of,” Dana says. Stubbornness felt like the antidote to settling for an unconventional proposal. And she didn’t want to take away her boyfriend’s opportunity to make the gesture. “Even though he couldn’t get something expensive, I think he wanted to pay for the ring for me,” she says.
She and her boyfriend Googled “white sapphires,” which look like diamonds but are more affordable, and asked their parents about family stones they could use. “We were really looking at everything to check off traditional wedding boxes while doing it in a way that made it work for us,” she says. “You’re just so conditioned from a young age to want some ginormous ring. The finger-spread Instagram effect is a real thing.”
Dana ended up having a diamond of her great-grandma’s reset, her boyfriend paying for it on layaway for a year and a half. “I orchestrated it myself, and it wasn’t traditional or a surprise in any way, shape, or form,” she says. “I know how this sounds, but so many of my friends who waited until later to get married have much better rings than me, and I know so many people look at my ring and make judgments. It can make me self-conscious. My friends will make jokes that my husband got off so easy.”
You’re just so conditioned from a young age to want some ginormous ring. The finger-spread Instagram effect is a real thing.
Distress over an engagement ring purchase is just a symptom of the larger dynamics that come into play when women are the breadwinners in straight relationships.
“As men do less well structurally, that shakes the foundations of patriarchy, which increases the importance of upholding patriarchal roles personally through rituals like engagement,” says Laurie Essig, Ph.D., a sociologist, professor of gender, sexuality, and feminist studies at Middlebury College, and author of Love, Inc.: Dating Apps, the Big White Wedding, and Chasing the Happily Neverafter.
As society shifts toward gender equality, women and men fall into the trap of uplifting patriarchy within their relationships, mostly subconsciously, and it hurts them both. It’s incredibly hard to avoid this pitfall, especially for Gen Z and millennials, who are among “the first generations having to navigate it in real life,” Essig says. Examples of older couples thriving in flip-flopped gender roles are difficult to find. “Younger generations are being tasked with living out this shift.” Hence the hesitation many women have about buying an engagement ring even when it may logically make sense as the higher earner. We haven’t yet established new romantic aspirations, ideals, and fantasies to match up with the reality of many couples’ financial arrangements.
If cultural benchmarks, like the classic proposal, are meaningful to you, being unable to achieve them can feel terrible. They poke at highly sensitive and deeply ingrained aspects of identity. “These gender roles are deeply toxic, and they can sneak their way in even if a couple is otherwise super well-connected and able to communicate,” says Hanna Morrell, a financial coach who works with couples at Pacific Stoa Financial Wellness. “When men earn less, they can feel like their autonomy is taken away and they’re ‘less of a man,’ which often means they’ll respond with rebellion or resentment, and women feel like they have to downplay their success, and that somehow making money is a bad thing.”
Nothing should be done purely in the name of feminism. But nothing should be done in the name of tradition either.
Women who are breadwinners end up taking on the pressures inherent with supporting someone financially, while also protecting their male partner’s ego. They don’t want to emasculate them, a concept that only exists because we’ve tied money so tightly to what it means to be a man. “Why would it be embarrassing to have a female partner who makes more than you? That should be good for everyone,” says Essig. “But under the conditions of patriarchy, you can’t be proud because men should have control of women.”
When men don’t have that authority, they’re inclined to obtain power in other ways, notes Maier, which can range from being abusive to not picking up their share of housework and emotional labor. Even when women are the higher earners, they still tend to take on more domestic and caregiving responsibilities than their male partners, an unfair setup that leads to major burnout. This might be one reason why straight couples with higher-earning women are more likely to get divorced.
It may also be why a lot of women, despite feminist ideologies, still want a partner who makes more. They know that even if they’re the financial provider, their partners won’t become the homemaker or primary parent. In other words, being the breadwinner means double the work—holding down a full-time job and holding down the household.
Wanting a higher-earning partner doesn’t make you a “bad feminist.” You could think of it as a survival strategy in a patriarchal, capitalistic society. But for younger generations of women, it’s becoming less realistic to find a partner who makes the same as or more than them. Ultimately, though, if it’s what you want, that’s valid.
“The beauty of third-wave feminism is that it’s about choice. If you want to be supported as a stay-at-home mom or have your partner propose to you, that’s great. Nothing should be done purely in the name of feminism,” Maier says. “But nothing should be done in the name of tradition either.” Given that we’re socialized through the lens of patriarchy, it can be hard to determine what’s an authentic preference and what’s been shaped by misogynistic stereotypes. “You have to be intentional about your choices, and question them, and figure out what’s really right for you,” Maier says. Examining your attractions and desires, and uncovering their origin, can be incredibly freeing.
(Image credit: Future)
We have a long way to go before men and women stop feeling the pressure of gender roles. It starts with imagining what our lives could look like without them, and having the courage to live that way now.
Émilie Gille, a 28-year-old living in Nashville, Tennessee, split the cost of her engagement ring, which was roughly $3,500, with her husband. When they made the decision to get married, he was a Ph.D. candidate making about $25,000 a year, and she was working in public relations with a $55,000 salary. “It felt weird to say, ‘Here’s the ring I like, and I want you to buy it for me,’” says Gille. “It felt old-fashioned that he would have to buy it to prove that he wanted to be with me, when really, getting engaged is about a partnership.”
Gille and her husband have no regrets about splitting the cost of her engagement ring. He’s Korean, and in his culture, engagement rings aren’t really even a thing. Their cultural differences made the whole process easier, Gille says. It helped her realize that stressing over the size and price of a ring—and who pays for it—is a uniquely American anxiety. Lauren, who spends most of her time abroad, echoed that sentiment.
Still, Lauren says, unlearning traditional money dynamics doesn’t happen overnight. When she first started splitting her income with her husband, she caught herself wanting to police his spending. “Like if he wanted to get an $8 latte at the airport, I’d want to say you can’t have it, but if the roles were reversed, I wouldn’t think twice about spending his money,” she says.
It felt old-fashioned that he would have to buy it to prove that he wanted to be with me, when really, getting engaged is about a partnership.
Critiquing your reactions is difficult and crucial work, and talking about them with a partner is itself a big step. “Just having a conversation together about what it means to be a man or a woman is challenging social gender norms,” Maier says.
Liberation lives on the other side of that conversation. When Naomi Clarke, a 35-year-old from Austin, Texas, was deciding how she wanted her engagement to look, she simply took what resonated from the traditional model, and left the rest. She bought her own ring for about $3,000, as well as a watch for her partner. After they’d talked about marriage many times, she surprised him with a proposal.
“Having a ring was more about symbolizing our commitment rather than fulfilling a tradition,” Clarke says. “We both appreciate the meaning behind wearing something representing our bond, but it didn’t have to follow conventional standards. For me, it was about having something tangible to signify the next phase of our relationship.”
Clarke, who works in HR, makes slightly more than her husband, a software engineer. But she says that wasn’t the main thing that pushed her to buy her own ring. She simply wanted to take the lead in the purchase. “It was never about who should buy it, but about what felt right for us.”
We need to hear more stories like Clarke’s, where women and men push past the confines of gender roles. Showing them in the media is a great place to start. When I asked Marie Claire’s pop culture experts if there are any movies, books, or TV shows where a woman buys her own engagement ring, they couldn’t think of a single example. Women proposing has been normalized (for example, Monica on Friends and Miranda on Sex in the City) but we need to take it a step further. We should see women making more money than their partners, and feeling empowered to buy their own engagement rings.
For Gille, who also bought a set of modest promise rings for herself and her husband (a Korean tradition), splitting the cost of her engagement ring just made sense, no matter who made more money. “I liked the idea of us starting on equal footing,” she says. “We’re equals in this relationship, so why wouldn’t we equally invest?”
Lauren says she still goes back and forth on whether she “missed out” on a traditional proposal. Ultimately, having a partner who provides emotional security is her biggest priority, and her husband gives her that in a way no other guy has before. Male earning power has lost its sheen since they met, but the engagement ring she bought herself has not. She tells people the truth about it, too. And her family has come to love it, and their relationship.
“My ring represents how I’ve been able to break out of the wedding blueprint and do it the way that makes sense for my partner and me,” she says. “I don’t feel ashamed about doing it differently.” Doing whatever works for you has a nice ring to it.
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