Diamonds are Forever…Real love is worth more

Now if you are anywhere within your mid twenties to late thirties you must be aware of the wedding mania that continues to sweep over Nigeria. It usually takes about 30 minutes for the newly engaged bride to be to change her status from ‘in a relationship’ to engaged on facebook, complete with a profile picture of her hand with her newly acquired ring.

But the sentiments behind the euphoria that surrounds engagements these days are not what they used to be. Gone are the days when ‘being engaged’ signified commitment towards a life of better or worse. Today, engagements are all about the size of the rock! So here is my health warning to all the unsuspecting young men out there, if you are about to buy the love of your life an engagement ring which she can ‘manage’ until your ruby anniversary, you might want to read this article first and think through your choice of rings carefully before you go on bended knee. Do not say I didn’t warn you oh!

Some time early last year my friend’s older sisters broke off her engagement to her boyfriend of 3 years – her fiancé of 6 months. His crime? He lied about the price of her engagement ring. Well lying might be a strong word, let’s just say he concealed the truth. The young man in question had proposed to his girlfriend with a ring that came in a Tiffany box. Now, you know how we girls can be. The newly engaged woman told all her friends the ring had been bought from Tiffany and Co and she still had the box to prove it. Her friends “awed” and “ahhed” and all seemed extremely jealous. Unfortunately, one of her friends, a jewellery connoisseur of some sort, spotted the fly in the ointment and was only to happy to point it out to the beaming bride to be. Furious, my friend’s sister accused her friend of being a jealous cow who could never be happy for anyone else but herself. And in her bid to prove her man’s worth, stormed over to the nearest Tiffany store with a few of her close friends only to find out the ring was indeed a fake. You may cast blame where you will, but the fact remains that the actions of all 3 involved in this story goes to show exactly what society has become.

To love and cherish, in sickness and in health, till death do us part have now been replaced by Tiffany & Co, Harry Winston and Cartier. Now if a man can afford to shop in such places, that’s all well and good but if he can’t, why force him to steal? The size of a man’s love is now measured by the size of the diamond on his bride’s finger. And the sentiments of unending love and commitment have become buried under the dazzle of exquisitely cut diamonds! But who can blame us girls, after all, we have been taught to believe that diamonds are a girl’s best friend and not our fiancé!

But let’s come back to reality for a second. Maybe it’s about time we begin to reevaluate our priorities and stop comparing our relationships to what Hollywood would have us believe. Perhaps it’s time we begin to take into account what’s really important and stop focusing on trivial issues. If a man proposes, it because he loves you and wants to spend the rest of his life with you. The size of the diamond is not directly proportional to the length of your martial years neither does it signify the quality of your prospective marriage. As an example, let’s examine the Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck scenario. After Ben reportedly proposed to Jennifer with a pink 6.1 carat diamond ring valued at over a million dollars. They didn’t even get to the altar.

I guess what I am trying to say in a nutshell is, we need to begin to value the immaterial over the material. Value the sentiments behind the proposal and prepare ourselves for the commitment marriage requires. Yes, diamonds may last forever, but marriages should as well….