I hate rings, watches etc. I offered to get a ring tattoo but Ms Lanzy hates tattoos so I just don’t wear one. Married 38 Years.
Looking at a woman’s hand to see if she’s got a ring on is a perfectly useless tactic anyway, because she could just as easily have a boyfriend.
My husband never wears his ring. He’s not from the U.S., though I don’t think that has anything to do with it. He simply doesn’t like the feel of it on his finger.
I wear my wedding ring if I’m going out of the house, but I stopped wearing my engagement ring when my son was born. I kept accidentally poking him with it when I was trying to nurse (I’m not a very graceful person). Now that I no longer wear it, when I do put my engagement ring on, it feels weird so I prefer not to unless it’s a special occasion that requires jewelry.
Neither of us cares if the other wears his or her ring. We both know we’re married. No need for a reminder.
This is exactly how I feel.
Only if you are counting on the no ring as an invitation to make your first approach of a woman some kind of skeezy come-on. I mean, really? Married women owe you a signal so that you can avoid talking to them? What happened to introducing yourself as a person? It doesn’t take more than a few minutes of innocent, non-danger-inviting conversation to find out whether someone’s married. But that’s too hard?
A ceremony might have value in and of itself. Do you walk around in your wedding costume for the rest of your life?
So what’s your hurry in finding out whether she’s married? Are you on death’s door? Can’t spare the time to interact with anyone not immediately available to copulate and produce offspring?
See the current thread (sorry, no link) about someone who merely stepped around a hyped up gorilla in a cafeteria line to retrieve his plate, inadvertently got between him and his girl, and nearly got into a fight. You think we are gonna ask when we can just look? Plausible deniability 
BTW, you would be surprised how often the “how married are you” line or something similar works. Maybe never with you, but just as a stopped clock is right twice a day, so do some conversation starters lead to, you know, conversations with people you think might be interesting to talk to, and who, in the paragraph immediately prior invited you to talk to them!
There is a word for a woman who invites you to talk with her, and then will immediately shoot you down, in effect humiliating you, BTW.
I fail to see how, when someone asks me “are you available?” and I say a simple, polite “no” that that is somehow “humiliating” to the person in question. Is your self-esteem that fragile? How tragic if it is, you must be a crying wreck most of the time if that is the case.
What IS offensive is your assumption that you are such a studly thing that your mere presence will prompt me to cheat on my long-time mate, as if everything I have invested in that long-term relationship is worthless.