This personal essay advocates against diamond purchases, critiquing industry marketing while emphasizing the human rights crisis of conflict diamonds that finance warfare in Angola, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. The author frames moissanite as an ethical and economical alternative, advancing consumer autonomy, family financial security, and education about gemstone supply chain ethics.
Similar arguments can be made about almost any fashion item. People don't buy fashion due to it's great quality, and most of the time not even due to good design, but mostly just to show off.
A diamond purchase is a type of proof-of-burn. It's a way to display how much you value the person by being willing to sacrifice a large part of your savings for them. It's not really about the stone itself, it's about the cost.
Seems like an american things really. In France, nobody would expect anyone to buy a certain kind of ring. As long as it's pretty, you can go for anything. Or no engagement ring. Some friends of mine don't even get wedding rings. And I just met a not married couple wearing rings just because they liked it.
Our wedding ceremonies are also usually way cheaper and less show off that the ones your pop culture is selling to you, so I hope you are not actually doing it IRL cause that seems a terrible way to start a long term relationship, money wise.
But I guess we don't have such a marriage culture here anymore. People do marry, but we also now have something called the PACS, which is a very simple legal union with no bells and whistles that is pretty popular. And of course plenty of people living for ever without a label on their relationship.
So people do this to signal (both to their spouse and their friends) they are both financially capable and care enough about their spouse to burn a large amount of money on a pyre. It's also a very useful signal that you are serious about the commitment and unlikely to back off of the marriage. I would prefer to replace it with a certificate that proves you have spent X thousand dollars on said certificate from Moche Silnorin Inc. A less personally-beneficial alternative would be some sort of modern dowery, the recipient of which is Moche Silnorin Inc, who holds on to the money until the culmination of the marriage, after which the dowery is given to the wife and so reunited with its giver once they share finances. If the engagement gets broken off, Moche Silnorin Inc keeps the money. However, this raises the possibility of bondsmen. Which isn't a possibility with diamonds, with their awful resale value. So perhaps just a non-refundable expense in exchange for proof you've given X thousand dollars to Moche Silnorin Inc would be ideal.
"The big difference between moissanite and diamond is that moissanite can be manufactured reliably and efficiently in a laboratory."
Thats not true, diamonds can be manufactured reliably and efficiently in a laboratory as well. And its nearly impossible to tell the difference between natural and artificial ones. Only a very complicated lab test with a machine can tell the difference.
Another alternative is synthetic, lab grown diamonds. They are superior to naturally occuring diamonds, cheaper, aren't tainted by human misery and suffering like conflic/blood diamondst, and arent extracted from ecologically damaging mining techniques like open pit mining.
I'm the OP - surprised to see this at the top of HN today, but happy to post a quick update:
My wife and I have been happily married for ten years now. She loves her ring, and it has held up extremely well. (She just had the band resized, absolutely no issues with the stones.)
No one has ever thought it was anything other than a diamond ring, which includes several years of daily scrutiny from crazy New York City brides in her role as a bridal gown sales manager in a high-end atelier in Midtown Manhattan. Those who know about the stones think they're beautiful and love that there's a good alternative to diamond.
I stand by everything I said in this essay, and would 100% recommend moissanite to anyone who is (or will soon be) in the jewelry market.
I like to believe that there's a lot of savvy and affluent couples out there who are buying either moissanites instead of diamonds and choosing not to tell their friends or family about it to avoid the social stigma. They then take the $5k to $20k they just saved (what's the rule of thumb, one month's gross salary?) and put it towards bootstrapping their new life.
You can even post close-up pictures of the stone on Facebook and not a single person you know will ever be able to tell because, as noted by the article, the difference is indistinguishable to the human eye.
As long as both members of the couple find this acceptable, it would be silly not to at this point.
That's nice. Androids are fine phones too for a fraction of the cost. The problem is my wife likes diamonds and iPhones and I doubt either has much to do with the specs.
I told my girlfriend (5 years) how I feel about diamonds and that I reject the very notion of buying a diamond engagement / wedding ring early on in our relationship.
Several months ago, we landed on the marriage conversation, again. I reiterated that I am against diamond engagement bands. She then said: "What about a wedding ring then?" I told her it applies to wedding rings as well. We got into a heated argument and she eventually said: "Let's just not talk about it anymore." What? Let's not talk about marriage anymore because I am against diamond engagement wedding rings and wedding bands?
Umm...Okay!
TL;DR GF said she doesn't want to get married unless I show her how much I love her by getting a diamond wedding ring or engagement ring.
Since 2006, the synthetic diamond gem industry has made considerable progress, and is now banging out real diamonds at a good clip. Gemesis was the first to mass-market synthetic diamond gemstones. (DeBeers tried intimidating the CEO, a retired U.S. Army general. Intimidation didn't work.) Now other companies are doing it.
Silicon carbide gemstones are available in bulk on Alibaba.[1] So are diamonds.The page for Changsa Chenguang Machinery and Electric Company makes it clear how far down diamonds have come.[2] They have a list of diamond products - diamond plate for cutting tools and wear parts, monocrystalline diamond for wire drawing dies, diamond inserts for well drilling cutters, and diamonds for gemstones. The gems are a sideline from the cutting tool business. Minimum gem order 10 grams, capacity six metric tons of diamonds a year. That's just one small manufacturer.
My wife wanted a diamond ring, but one that included stones that have been in her family for a 6 generations. We designed the ring together (with the help of Rhino3D and a local gem shop in Chicago). We melted down the old platinum ring and used the money for a new setting. It's the only ring she has; no separate engagement and wedding rings.
My opinion is that people who insist on the two-months' salary-marketing ploy are chumps and I don't respect that lack of real thought for such a major decision. I told her afterwards that if she would have insisted on a new diamond ring, we wouldn't have gotten married. Currently at seven years and two kids.
My wife has a diamond engagement ring and wedding band. Since then I've bought her several cubic zirconias. I can tell the difference (I'm a geologist by training) because the CZ's have too much fire, but I'm not sure I would ever see the difference if I didn't know in advance. And moissanites are much closer even than CZ in diamond-like properties. CZ, however, is way cheaper. Like $10 for a 1-carat stone.
Could be that moissanite is just expensive enough to qualify as an engagement stone (where CS is way too cheap).
There was an AMA on reddit [1] that addressed the status of DeBeers price control, the idea that synthetic diamonds are 'flawless', etc. Lots of other cool info too, related to the diamond and gem industry.
I never knew moissanite existed, thank you for the unknown.
I am skeptical of the post—the argument is diamond sucks, but after reading the post, it appears to be “diamond sucks, buy moisanite instead.” 1). Why is there only one alternative? 2). Why does it matter that people will assume the ring is diamond? 3). Let’s assume all diamonds are subsidizing African warlords. How would I know if my hard-earned money isn’t subsidizing some Chinese manufacturers known to exploit human labor?
I would be getting more “bling for my buck” if it was the same commodity. You mentioned that others wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between moisanite and diamond, but if moisanite is better than diamond, then others should be able to recognize moisanite and perhaps comment “the refraction index for this ring appears to be higher than diamond, it must be a moisanite. It’s beautiful!”
Wedding is a tradition, but it’s not required for marriage likewise diamond is the symbolic instrument for proposals, but the ring does not have to be diamond.
I appreciate your post for the detail comparison breakdown between diamond and moisanite, but I am skeptical of the intent. Research the luxury handbag industry and you’ll find the same patterns, and what alternatives are there, typically, for cheaper Chanel handbags?
>If I can prevent a single reader from needlessly dropping $6,000-10,000+ on a diamond engagement ring, this site will be a success. Financial worries are the #1 cause of stress in a married relationship - there is absolutely NO excuse to start your married life by taking on that level of debt.
This is probably very naive of me but it honestly never occurred to me that anyone would actually go into debt for a ring. I naively assumed everyone did it the old fashioned way. Save up and don't pop the question until you either have bought the ring or at least have the cash on hand to go get one together.
Personally if I was being proposed to and discovered that my partner had gone into debt to get a ring I would seriously question the wisdom of picking them as a life partner.
When we got engaged I put the money I would have spent on a ring towards buying a farm (as someone said in a thread on news.yc "oh, you're The Farm Guy!").
My wife thanks me almost literally every day for the farm. I don't think she'd appreciate a diamond ring nearly as much.
When it came time to actually get married I dropped around $2 or $2.5k on gold casting grain, carving wax, a small burn out kiln, a crucible, etc., and made wax blanks for our rings on my Sherline lathe, then cast them in gold using the burn out kiln and my blacksmithing forge.
Meanwhile, she sewed her own dress from scratch.
After the small church ceremony we had everyone back to our house for BLTs and tomato soup, using home made bacon and home made bread, etc.
Our complete wedding cost maybe $3,000 or $3,500 and the cost was dominated by the burn out kiln and the gold.
The good news is that the kiln and accessories still get used: a few weeks ago she carved a belt buckle from wax and I cast it in bronze.
My advice: eschew consumerism. A DIY lifestyle is a lot more fun.
[ edit ]
here's a pix of my first practice rings in silver, and then one of the rough cast gold rings before cleanup.
https://goo.gl/photos/tdLEjxQipMS2ZtQh8
If you're old enough to be thinking about marrying your girlfriend, your girlfriend has probably decided already what she thinks about diamonds and spending money on pretty but useless things. And if you've been dating her long enough to think about marrying her, then you should probably have a pretty good guess about how she thinks about it.
First and foremost, it's a proof of social status between her and her peers, so you need to know who her friends are. But there are so many factors to weigh in. Someone I know got a sapphire ring to propose to his girlfriend, and she commented about how she was glad that he remembered that she hated diamonds. A couple I know have silver wedding bands which were made by an artist that they both know. The rings are unique and special—and this is important—in a way that they can brag about. They don't brag about it, but they could, if they were that kind of people.
However, if you are unable to express your concerns about diamonds without worrying that she'll think you love her less, then you are NOT ready to propose. Consider premarital counseling—which is something you do to get ready for marriage, not something you do because you have problems.
Interesting. Moissanite (silicon carbide) has a number of similar characteristics to diamond. So I decided to see whether, like diamond, its use as a high-temperature semiconductor had been investigated. Turns out the answer is yes, specifically by Toyota for its hybrid cars' power control units (PCUs):
Which in turn isn't even just about the (monetary) cost: the diamond ring is part of a collection of social rituals intended to increase the (social & psychological) cost of exit from marriage.
Use the difference in price on a down payment on a home/apartment or open a college savings account for your kids. Tell the truth, you want to build a life together and are thinking about the long term financial and personal consequences of this decision. I bought a ruby for my wife for this exact reason. I also wanted to show our community that we rejected diamonds as a tradition. I think the more we discuss this issue the more likely social conventions will change so future couples won't have to have a discussion.
Then give a donation receipt for a charity that you both support for the cost of the diamond instead. At least that way the sacrificed money will support something you both believe in rather than the diamond industry.
And it's a social ranking mechanism. You've attracted a mate that is richer, more capable provider, therefore you are more capable and rank higher in your groups social ranking.
It shows how the concept of diamond engagement rings were completely invented by a specific ad campaign; first in America and now expanding to the rest of the world.
They were specifically trying to create social pressure to buy the most expensive ring possible; to reinforce the impression that a diamond ring demonstrated wealth and ability to take care of a spouse; and even set the three months salary purchase price target most people reference.
If there's ever been a greater con so openly and deliberately imposed on society, I can't think of one off the top my head.
It's definitely not just that, because placing huge import on diamonds, and gushing over their (much agreed upon) beauty, and having preferences for stones and cuts etc., and showing them off at the office, and talking about their size and how much they must have cost, and equating some of those things with the size of someone's affection and worth as a person, are still ubiquitous in (at least) American society.
As far as I can tell they're only on the way out with bleeding-edge progressives.
Wife and I had read the Atlantic article before it was too late, went with plain wedding bands for both of us. However, living in America, this is causing issues for her, continuously having to explain to friends and acquaintances why she does not have a diamond.
We'd been looking for used rings as an alternative - hence, thank you very much for writing this, you just saved me and my wife several thousand dollars.
The only special thing about diamonds in particular is that - as opposed to other fashion items - the market for diamonds has been[0] literally created out of thin air by a single company, thanks to many decades of marketing efforts.
We came to a similar conclusion. Although we had already bought a diamond ring.
After researching, we figured out that we could sell our diamond (we only got about 60% of the original price back from a diamond broker) and buy a twice as large synthetic diamond and still save several thousand $.
There is only upside as far I can tell: it looks better (clarity), is bigger (no can tell the difference between a real and "fake" diamond), has fewer environmental and ethical externalities, and is cheaper.
(french also)
I know a couple who married at the beggining of their fifties, just went to the mayor's office with two witnesses, signed the papers and that was all. They are both litterature teachers for students in their master cycle.
Did you get to the point of explaining why you're against diamonds? Was she able to tell you why she wants a diamond in particular? To resolve this issue it would be good to exchange the exact, real reasons why one side wants the diamond and the other doesn't. But even then, it may end up your GF will insist on the diamond - while all the rational-in-the-vacuum reasons are against diamonds, there's this whole thing called culture, social pressure and someone spending half of their life imagining the perfect diamond ring. Those are perfectly valid reasons too. So if she insist, don't be angry at her - be angry at De Beers.
Given that the diamond ring fad apparently originated from a marketing campaign, it would be interesting to see how well the belief that wedding rings should have a diamond correlates with where the ads were run.
At least in the nordics, I don't think there's a specific type of wedding (EDIT: or engagement) ring that you're expected to have, and I think many people have no stone of any kind embedded in theirs.
"In Europe, where diamond prices had collapsed during the Depression, there seemed little possibility of restoring public confidence in diamonds. In Germany, Austria, Italy, and Spain, the notion of giving a diamond ring to commemorate an engagement had never taken hold. In England and France, diamonds were still presumed to be jewels for aristocrats rather than the masses. Furthermore, Europe was on the verge of war, and there seemed little possibility of expanding diamond sales. This left the United States as the only real market for De Beers's diamonds. In fact, in 1938 some three quarters of all the cartel's diamonds were sold for engagement rings in the United States. Most of these stones, however, were smaller and of poorer quality than those bought in Europe, and had an average price of $80 apiece. Oppenheimer and the bankers believed that an advertising campaign could persuade Americans to buy more expensive diamonds."
From a fellow moissanite fangirl, thank you for writing this up! I always enjoy telling people my ring isn't a diamond, but the essay is more compelling to share with folks that can't see moissanite in person.
I have a 1ct moissanite and 2 3mm white sapphires in my ring, and the bonus was that custom designing my own ring was still _drastically_ cheaper than getting a diamond: http://i.imgur.com/H3jDulz.jpg
The prices on these are still artificially inflated. I was told directly by the president of one of these synthetic companies that De Beers will move into large production in a few years For now, the other synthetics are just being allowed to exist as the cartel makes the transition provided they don't undercut too much and stay carefully in a few niches.
I'm curious how difficult moissanite is to manufacture compared to diamonds, as I was under the impression diamonds require high pressure and temperature to make.
Directly advocates for right to life by criticizing conflict diamonds that finance warfare, genocide, and violence in named regions
FW Ratio: 60%
Observable Facts
Page defines conflict diamonds: 'a diamond mined in a war zone and sold, usually clandestinely, in order to finance an insurgent or invading army's war efforts'
Page states conflict profits fund 'warlords in Angola, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, who use their weapons to kill and maim innocent people'
Page frames moissanite purchase as ethical alternative: 'you can rest assured that your hard-earned money isn't subsidizing African warlords'
Inferences
Author advocates for consumer responsibility in protecting human life by avoiding products that finance armed violence
Purchasing decisions are framed as having direct human rights consequences in specific regions
Advocates for financial security and adequate standard of living by encouraging consumer choices that prevent debt and enable economic opportunity
FW Ratio: 60%
Observable Facts
Page emphasizes: 'Financial worries are the #1 cause of stress in a married relationship'
Page frames moissanite as enabling financial security: 'Saving for a down payment, creating an emergency fund, and putting aside money to invest are all substantially easier'
Page discusses opportunity cost: avoiding expensive diamond enables spending on 'a fantastic honeymoon, a car, furniture, a down payment on a house, investing for the future'
Inferences
Author frames personal financial autonomy as essential to adequate standard of living
Consumer choice is presented as enabling broader economic security and opportunity for couples
Explicitly advocates for consumer education: 'The intent of this website is to raise awareness' through provision of comparative data and technical information
FW Ratio: 60%
Observable Facts
Page states explicit education goal: 'The intent of this website is to raise awareness among big-ticket jewelry purchasers'
