In Brazil, the custom is that if the person is engaged (male or female), they were the band on the right hand. Then when married they have the wedding band on the left hand.
So I had to retrain myself to look at both hands of the guys I met, not just the left one. Although I liked that both sexes wore the rings, it bothers me that it is only stressed on women in other places to wear them. After all, I would like to know if the attractive guy I see across the room is engaged or married before doing anything I would consider stupid.
When I was a kid, I distinctly remember my grandma letting my sister play with her old costume jewellery (yeah, and I was wearing her pearls too, and there’s nothing wrong with that!) and counselling my sister that she should keep her left-hand ring-free because it means you’re taken. Said grandma also explained which way you’re supposed to wear a Claddagh ring if you’re single.
But I only assume it’s a wedding ring if it looks like a wedding band and there are no other rings.
‘Looks like a wedding ring’? Okay, there’s a problem. Many people I know have plain wedding rings. Some have braided rings. Some have rings with jewels. Some have ugly, ostentations rings.
Maybe I’d feel differently if I was a guy, as they generally don’t wear a lot of jewelry and almost never a ring unless they’re married, but I refuse to “save” a finger just so some guy can tell at a glance whether he can hit on me or not. I like rings, and they’re my fingers, and I’ll wear my rings wherever I want.
At most I’ve thought, “People will think/joke that I’m married!” Never “Gosh, I shouldn’t wear it on my ring finger lest some guy think I’m unavailable.” It’s not my problem if they’re going to rely on such unreliable cues.
I also wear engagement- or promise ring- style rings even though the rings were never obtained as such. I’m sure that’s a no-no in someone’s book, but I don’t really care. If I like the ring, I’m gonna wear it.
I am married now, so I don’t really care anymore. But when I was single I wouldn’t approach any woman that had a ring on her wedding finger, it didn’t matter what that ring looked like. For me it was never worth the risk of some guy coming out of the bathroom and saying “What are you doing talking to my wife!” (Ok, so that has never happened to me or anyone I know, but it’s a good short hand).
There were plenty of fish in the sea and I avoided the ones that were publicly stating that they were married.
I always thought they were standard wedding bands. Of course once I got old enough that I was more likely to meet married women, suddenly wedding rings come it all sorts of diverse shapes, sizes, styles and stones. They are all different and I can’t tell if it’s a wedding ring or just regular jewelery.
It’s a conspiracy against single men! :mad:
(Not single anymore, but still bitter that the easy identifier has been all fuddled up.)
I wear these nearly every day. My daughter gave me the middle ring as a Mother’s Day gift when she was eleven. She didn’t understand from engagement-style rings, she just loved the sparkly. A couple of years ago, I lost a lot of weight and the ring didn’t fit anymore, so she bought me the ones on either side of it to keep it on. Lots of people assume that it’s a bridal set from a previous marriage, and some people seem entirely baffled by it, but hey… my daughter bought me those rings! I’m way more likely to wear these until I drop than most people are to wear their actual wedding jewelry.
As a single girl, I do this too. It would be darn convenient if people would label themselves as available or not, but that’s just not going to happen.
I wear my grandmother’s engagment ring, and I usually do so on my right hand middle finger, as that’s where it fits. (I probably wouldn’t wear it on my left hand ring finger, though, just because). However, I wear rings there if they fit.
Still, when I was in high school and buying my class ring, that’s the finger I had it sized for. (Sadly, that was 13 years ago, and it no longer fits.)
This is the tradition all over Eastern Europe. I used to wear a ring on my right ring finger but stopped after I got tired of the Bulgarians exclaiming that they didn’t know I was married. (In retrospect, I should have made up a story and avoided two years of people trying to set me up with their children. “You should marry my son! He’s a bus driver in Sofia. He has his own apartment!”)
Indian women wear henna for non-marital reasons too, you know. A good friend of mine is Indian and she often draws designs on her hands just for decoration. She drew one on my hand recently, too. It was nifty, but every time I looked at it, I had a split second of thinking my hand was dirty before the pattern came into focus.
I suspect something like this is in the works. Consider:
a) Facebook Mobile. (I have it on my iPhone.)
b) Phone-based still and video cameras.
c) Video glasses with cameras.
d) Apple’s new face-recognition software. You tell it Picture A is of John, and then it goes through all your other pictures and tries to find John’s face in them.
The pieces are there, just waiting to be hooked up.
Well, yes, you can wear other rings on the ring finger per my jeweler mother.
Small story: I’ve heard that employers don’t like young married women because they have babies and employers don’t like young single women because they aren’t grounded to the location.
So, I wore a ruby ring with diamond baguettes on the ring finger on an interview that’s about borderline between an engagement ring and a cocktail ring, and go by “Ms.”
I refuse to kowtow to any cultural aspect that doesn’t really matter and doesn’t affect me. I won’t be getting a diamond engagement ring (provided he’s listened all these years!), and I certainly won’t avoid wearing a ring on that finger because someone might think something of it.
Also, not only do women wear mendhi (the Hindi word for henna) for non-marital reasons, we also wear it just because our friend or our sister is getting married. Or just because. I love mendhi and love drawing designs on myself.
Years ago, a girlfriend bought me a nice gold ring with a square garnet in it for my birthday (my birthstone). We had previously had the “we’re not getting married, we’re just having sex” conversation, so I knew it was just a nice gift. I used to wear it on my left hand. As I usually don’t wear any jewelry, it was just uncomfortable to shake hands with people wearing it on my right hand. Most men (that I hung around) were all about the ‘macho GI Joe kung-fu grip’ handshake, and crushing my fingers just hurt more with a band of metal in the mix.
I lost it about 5 years ago when I got mugged in DC.
When meeting other girls (after this gf had moved out of state), I always had to explain this to potential dates. Some understood, some didn’t. I honestly think that the stereotype of ‘ring=wedding ring’ on the left hand is baloney. Do what you want.
I did not know this. I thought it was for the bride only. I love the designs; I think there should be more of them.
(Oddly, I don;t feel the same way about tattooing, but I think that’s mostly because of the way tattoos seem to fade to blue over the years. Brown goes much better with human skin. )
Just chiming in to say that the reason you wear wedding rings on the left ring finger is that ancient Greek physicians thought it was the end of a nerve leading directly to the heart. And I don’t see the big deal in not wearing other rings on that finger.
Heh. This is a recent marketing ploy to get women to buy more diamond rings. The engagement ring is something the man gets her, but the right-hand ring is a gift she gives herself, or some such. And they are crazy fancy (IMHO over-the-top):
I actually do wear a ring on my left ring finger, that I bought myself when I realized no one would ever give me one. It’s what I would want as an engagement ring–garnet with tiny diamonds on the sides. So it’s meaningful to me that I wear it on that finger, but doesn’t really mean available/unavailable.
Although I liked that both sexes wore the rings, it bothers me that it is only stressed on women in other places to wear them. After all, I would like to know if the attractive guy I see across the room is engaged or married before doing anything I would consider stupid. 
