Moreover, how often have we heard that diamonds are a girl’s best friends? We associate diamond rings as potential engagement rings since what might seem to us time immemorial. However, the truth is something vastly different. Diamonds actually came to thought of as wedding gifts first when Mary of Burgundy betrothed to Arcduke Maximillan of Austrian in 1477. Even then, the exchanging of diamond rings fir engagements were not in common being until mines in South Africa discovered in the 19th century drove down the prices of diamonds. Americans started gifting betrothal rings regularly. The De Beers Company brought the major revolution however, to the market in the 1930s. During 1919, De Beers had experienced a fall in diamond sales for almost about a couple of decades. The advertising company N. W. Ayer undertook the responsibility of bringing diamond back to its lost glory, working for De Beers. Ayers encouraged actors from Hollywood to flaunt diamond rings in public. Between 1938 and 1941, diamond sales went up by about 55%. Soon by around 1945, a bride would wear a diamond engagement ring and a wedding ring to match with it. In 1947, when Frances Gerety in one of her works mentioned that a diamond is forever, the term was coined as a caption for all diamond selling companies ever since.

The sale of diamonds as betrothal rings continued to rise sharply until the 1950s. By this time, diamond rings had become both a sign of status and a necessity for betrothal ceremonies. About 80% of the American women had diamonds. Meanwhile, as obvious, the price of diamonds started climbing from a month’s salary to the salary of a couple of months. Now, came in the question of money as the laws allowing a woman to demand for financial compensation from her fiance, if they should break off waned. Once the diamonds given as a sign of commitment, men would hardly choose to leave their fiances because the diamond cost them a sixth of the year’s salary. It also started acting as a symbol for the fact that the man was capable to look after his wife financially. Since engagement rings were only for women, it almost became a price for the woman the man wanted to marry. In fact, many advertisements subtly put in the debate over a woman’s sexuality as parodies.