Wedding rings? Think again!

The unbroken circle is an age-old symbol of eternity. Yet the giving of a ring does not mean everlasting love. (It's a beautiful idea, but it doesn't work. Many people divorce yet their wedding ring remains intact.) Also, the ring does not represent enslavement: a more permanent mark could be made with a branding iron or a tattooed bar-code on the forehead. (Betrothed Okinawan women used to have a blue 2cm square block tattooed on their hands and/or arms.)

No, the ring is neither everlasting love nor bondage, but an effigy of magic.

The soul is a circle (Plato)

Plato's plate


Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself
Till by broad spreading it disperse to naught
(William Shakespeare)


Typhoons, convection currents, the arc of a rainbow. Roundness is a very natural shape.

A ring is a circle (you've probably noticed that) and a circle has very strong magical connotations. The circle is endless and timeless suggesting a repetitive unbroken wholeness in time and space. It even suggests reincarnation to some people.

"Everything tries to be round" says Black Elk (1863-1950) an Oglala Sioux holy man. It's the strongest and most 'natural' shape. Eggs and most fruit are round (especially when dissected in the middle). A bird builds its nest in a circle. Fairy rings. Crop circles. Sharks and vultures circle their dinner. Earth is round, rotates, and orbits. (No wonder I'm dizzy; the world keeps spinning in circles. See what the space travellers say about this in our humour pages.)

Our lives move in repeated and interwoven circles. We leave home, go to work, return home. Work until we are tired, sleep until we are refreshed, work, sleep, work. We are born of dust, live, and return to dust. Our blood circulates in our bodies.

Is it coincidence that we use the circle to represent zero; that strange value which is neither positive nor negative? (You know, if all these circular thoughts were laid end-to-end on the equator, they would make a really big circle.)

Each of us operates on a circadian rhythm of about 24 hours (our 'biological clock'). Some people believe in biorhythms: a physical cycle of 23 days, an emotional cycle of 28 days and the mental cycle of 33 days.

With the orbiting of the Earth and moon, our day moves in a circle, as do our months (see days-months-seasons). Because of this, astrology had a huge influence on the way ancient people perceived the world and the meaning of life (see Rokuyo)

Let mathematicians and geometricians
talk of circles and triangles charms,
The figure I prize is a girl with bright eyes,
and the circle that's formed by her arms.
(Anon)

Circle studies have been going round (!) for years. Empedodes (a Greek philosopher, statesman, poet and physiologist, 490-430 BC) said "The nature of God is a circle of which the centre is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere" (but in Greek of course)

Fundamental concepts of Sikhism are reflected in the Khanda. This includes a Chakra (a weapon of Vishnu) which is circular and symbolizes the perfection of God. Hindus and Buddhists have a similar disc in the Wheel of Dharma. For Muslims, the Qur'an talks of Solomon's magic ring that could exorcise demons. In Judaism and Christianity, we read in Ezekiel 1 about mysterious rings appearing in the sky. (Yes, flying saucers are also circular)

The circular halo that we sometimes see around the sun and moon is usually depicted on icons in various religious to depict the bearer's brilliance.

Stonehenge is a 5,000-year-old circle of huge stones in southern England, which many believe was a pagan temple built over an even older cemetery.

An equally old stone circle in Scotland was, until recently, used in nuptials. See World's Biggest Wedding Ring

Circles have always enjoyed a universal perception of having strong magical properties. And with such magical power, a ring around the heart would surely protect a person from evil spirits.

Is a palm-reader
the same as
a Palm Pilot?

But even in these days of cardiothoracic science, it's not easy to put a ring around the heart. So in the old days they had a simple answer: they put the ring on the third finger which they believed had a vein, artery or nerve (a sort of a USB cable) running directly to the heart. And as the left hand is a bit closer to the heart than the right, they placed engagement and wedding rings on the third finger of the left hand. (In some cultures the ring is worn on the right hand, since the right hand is considered more righteous.)

Patient: "It hurts when I press here on my shoulder, here on my elbow, and here on my knee."

Doctor: "That's because your finger's broken!"

Hmmm... The word 'they' appears quite a few time in the previous paragraph, with no indication of who 'they' were. Or when or where or why.

See What's left? for a little more on this.

If the ring has pagan, magical properties, then why does it form such an important part of a Christian wedding ceremony? Does the wedding ring have any religious significance?

Not much.

Like many other pagan symbols, the ring has been adopted into Christian ceremonies and rites. There is no Biblical reference decreeing the wedding ring as a requirement. See Other pagan symbols used in the Church.

See also our related article for a bit more on wedding rings, and what the Bible and the Church say about them. We show some standard vows exchanged with wedding rings, and some background on rings worn by clergy, bishops and the pope. See Rings in Christianity.

O-haguro
(Could this be the origin of 'hag'?)

Certainly in Japan at least, the custom of wearing a ring is now prefered to the fashion of the Edo era (late-1800s) when married women displayed their marital status by painting their teeth black (ohaguro).

Fortunately times change, and today Japanese married couples wear wedding rings.

And they are worn, not for any religious or magical reason, but because the person wants to publicly announce that they have found an intimate friend that they plan share the rest of their lives with. The appearance, attractiveness, and its material value, are the important factors for choosing a wedding ring. The magical or religious connotations have little or no relevance.

This leads us finally to that all too familiar god... The God of Money

We are not suggesting that jewellers invented the two sexes just so they could sell wedding rings, but jewellers today are making an awful lot of money from the ring tradition.

Whilst the religious and magical connections are ignored by most who marry today, the traditional wedding ring survival is so strong that just about every couple continues to use them as a symbol of marriage. One reason the tradition has continued is thanks to the marketing efforts of giant jewelry companies.

Couples today tend to spend less on the wedding ring than they do on the engagement ring. There are probably two main reasons for this:

1. The engagement ring is bought perhaps a year or so before the wedding. The couple are excited and want to splash out on something grand. Conversely, the wedding ring is bought when they must face other large wedding bills.

2. Engagement rings tend to have stones, and wedding rings tend to be plain. Why a ring with stones should be more expensive than a plain ring defies logic, since a thick, solid gold wedding ring costs more than a thinner metal used for engagement rings. But jewelry companies know the spending patterns of couples and price the stones accordingly.

   An ordinary lump of refractive crystalline form of carbon (i.e. diamond) is a brilliant (!) example of an overpriced commodity. They have a pathetic resale value, are extremely common, and are only so exorbitantly expensive because of the stock-piling diamond cartel. (There are plenty of Internet resources you should read before spending a large amount of money on a diamond, including horror stories about child kidnapping for slave labour, terrorist links, etc. There's a brief overview on our ancillary page: diamonds.)

Rings are awkward and expensive. Sometimes difficult to put on during the wedding ceremony if your hands get hot and swell slightly, (Vaseline or hand cream often helps) and fumbly fingers often drop them (too much Vaseline!) And if the bride has a ring with a big stone, it can be sometimes difficult to wear the costume gloves. (Tip: Rotate the ring so the stone is on the palm-side of the hand before you pull on the glove.) But despite this page's attempt to expose the lack of any real romantic or spiritual power-force of rings, please go ahead and buy your wedding rings.

And wear them with pride.

Show the world that you have found a loving partner, a friend with whom you can share the rest of your life.

Diamonds are forever
Lucky talismans
Other pagan symbols

And here's an idea for your wedding - if you want something a bit different: Ring Relay