The Diamond Engagement Ring Gail Heriot

I arrived at the airport two hours early this morning, but the lines weren’t really that bad, so made it to my gate more than an hour before my flight.  To kill a little time, I thought I’d buy a magazine.  Unfortunately, there were only two kinds available beyond security:  (1) those that announced engagements, marriages and divorces of mega-celebrities that I’ve never heard of, and (3) those that have lots of pictures of things that cost lots of money.  Neither seemed tempting.

But they did get me to thinking about the thing they had in common–diamond engagement rings.  I remember reading an article written a few years back by Peg Brinig that I found fascinating.  It was entitled “Rings and Promises” and it appeared in the Journal of Law, Economics and Organization (an excerpt is available here by clicking on “RIngs and Promises”).  The article took the position that an engagement “‘ring is a pledge to bind the contract to marry.'” (Jacobs v. Davis, [1917] 2 K.B.532). So far, that seems pretty uncontroversial.  The interesting part was that Brinig found some evidence at least that engagement rings experienced a boom in popularity about the time the cause of action for breach of promise to marry was abolished.  The engagement ring can thus be viewed a market adaptation to the gap created when the law bowed out of the business of providing a remedy for breached promises to marry.  If a jilted bride has a cause of action for breach of promise to marry, she has less need an engagement ring.  But if she doesn’t, then … well … diamonds are a girl’s next best friend.