# A woman giving her husband a wedding ring as a gift - normal? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 29, 2011, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-woman-giving-her-husband-a-wedding-ring-as-a-gift-normal/583625 "2011-05-29T01:49:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2011, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-woman-giving-her-husband-a-wedding-ring-as-a-gift-normal/583625/1 "2011-05-29T01:49:30Z")
This is another question related to genius Hal Ashby’s excellent film _Coming Home._ I know this is the third question I’ve asked about something in this movie in the past week, yet it’s not my fault that the movie contains so many perplexing details. Early in the movie, Jane Fonda’s character gives her husband (Bruce Dern) a gift before he goes off to fight in Vietnam. The gift is a wedding ring. He says, upon recieving it, “a little wedding ring!” and puts it on his finger. I really don’t understand this at all. I was under the impression that when people are married, they get their wedding rings _at the wedding._ Since when does a wife, who has already been married to her husband for several years, give him a wedding ring for him to wear as a gift? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2011, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-woman-giving-her-husband-a-wedding-ring-as-a-gift-normal/583625/2 "2011-05-29T02:01:24Z")
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, but I think it was her own ring. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2011, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-woman-giving-her-husband-a-wedding-ring-as-a-gift-normal/583625/3 "2011-05-29T02:21:19Z")
No, she says “I bought you a present,” then gives him a little box, he opens it, and says "a little wedding ring!’ Then he puts it on his finger, indicating that he didn’t have one already. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2011, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-woman-giving-her-husband-a-wedding-ring-as-a-gift-normal/583625/4 "2011-05-29T02:28:01Z")
I don’t remember then. I haven’t seen it since it originally came out, though. I mostly remember Jon Voight going down on Jane Fonda. ---
**Author:** ![Girl\_From\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Girl\_From\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_From_Mars)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2011, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-woman-giving-her-husband-a-wedding-ring-as-a-gift-normal/583625/5 "2011-05-29T02:36:27Z")
I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve heard it was not always traditional for a man to wear a wedding ring. He may perhaps have not had one, and when he left she wanted to give him a solid reminder of their marriage - hence giving him a ring. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2011, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-woman-giving-her-husband-a-wedding-ring-as-a-gift-normal/583625/6 "2011-05-29T02:38:00Z")
I think this film has one of the best uses of popular music in the soundtrack of all time (also, I think, one of the first.) There are like five Stones songs and even several Beatles songs, which is very rare in a movie. I never thought of _Strawberry Fields_ as a romantic song, until I saw the scene in this film where it was used to great effect. It blows my mind to think that the music being used in the film _was the popular music of the time,_ the same way a film now might have Kanye West or Lady Gaga or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2011, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-woman-giving-her-husband-a-wedding-ring-as-a-gift-normal/583625/7 "2011-05-29T04:47:56Z")
> [@Girl\_From\_Mars](#): > > I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve heard it was not always traditional for a man to wear a wedding ring. He may perhaps have not had one, and when he left she wanted to give him a solid reminder of their marriage - hence giving him a ring. That’s what I was thinking. My grandfather didn’t have one when he and my grandmother got married; it was the Depression, and they couldn’t afford it. I’ve also got a friend whose husband has totally destroyed two wedding rings (he works in construction, and is pretty hard on things like that). People lose them, etc., and some guys just aren’t ring “types.”