Modern Western tradition has it that marriage proposals are sealed by popping the question, along with the offering of an engagement ring. Here, the engagement ring functions as a gift of betrothal and as an official pact of exclusivity. Thence, custom has it that women who wear a ring on the left hand ring finger are already set to make their marriage vows. This traditional symbolic gesture of promising exclusivity, however, has began to change with the New Millennium: who would have heard of New Age engagement rings becoming popular?

Many cultures have practiced and innovated upon the practice of offering and wearing engagement rings. Americans, for instance, it is becoming popular for women to gift men with an engagement ring to seal the engagement for both parties. The practice though had been quite common in Europe—especially in the Nordic nations—where engagement rings later serve as wedding rings and are therefore worn by both engaged.

Most Western
societies—which are affluent cultures generally—peg engagement rings to equal approximately a guy’s two-month salary. It may be true that this value is a standard for jewelers, consumerist practice pegs the value to go no lower than a guy’s one-month wage.

Even the way a ring looks has changed with the times. It is no longer an ear of the eternal band or the tiffany setting. Gold has given way to platinum and silver—even titanium—as base metal setting for that gem. Likewise, it is no longer the monopoly of the diamond solitaire—because you could have a princess cut of sapphire or ruby, as those received by England’s Royal Ladies, or a mini-florette of red garnet and be engaged just as well.

The new age is the age of red stones, definitely reeking with love, including red spinels, tournamlines, and garnets. After all, in this day and age, your woman may have accepted the ring—but only as a conditional gift but never as sure sign of her agreement to living a life with you forever.