Sounds like they would have been better off not married to those horrible persons.
Exactly. That diamonds are expensive is almost the entire point. If it becomes possible to buy artificial diamond rings for like $50, the tradition will disappear entirely. People will find some other signaling act.
Agreed with your broader point though. IIRC there's an economics term for this—goods that don't follow the standard supply/demand price curve, but where increasing price actually increases demand over some range. Ah, "Veblen" goods, apparently.
That's.. quite a choice of words.
There is something more profound with holding a stone that was forged deep in the Earth and somehow mined from there, too, even if chemically it's the exact same thing.
At least in the consumer world
Glad to read thats changing
Coincidentally, I bought a bunch of moissanite on aliexpress just yesterday. I went looking for artificial diamonds, but they were still more expensive than the frivolity-money I planned on blowing. (and were hard to find in that SEO hellscape) Plus clear silicon-carbide has better optical properties than diamond anyway, so moissanite looks nicer.
Ironically her degree and academic research career are both very much concerned with authenticating the provenence of ancient stuff dug out of the ground. Just not lizard-brain shiny rocks.
If "not wasting money" is a core value for you, but "status" is more important for your partner, things will go sour sooner or later.
Of course it's very difficult to be rational in limerence.
Pretending that normal human behaviour is a “red flag” is a path towards conflict and unhappiness.
Sure, you can find outliers that don’t care about such things, but not everyone can marry only a minority of women.
So is taking them for a ride, getting half of their assets and house, and having relationships and babies with other man.
So?
>Sure, you can find outliers that don’t care about such things, but not everyone can marry only a minority of women.
No, but a huge majority can be divorsed at 40, paying alimony, losing half their assets, and wondering why they listened to stupid advice based on "normal human behaviour" and "good reproductive strategies".
Funny also how this "normal human behaviour" and "good reproductive strategies" it's just manifested in the form of a demand for an expensive rock in the US, almost as it's a BS cultural thing and not some evolutionary standard.
No woman in this parts of Europe (and many others I know of) would care for such BS, unless she's the type that goes for older rich guys with expensive cars and yaughts too.