[istrice]

I started looking into diamonds two years before I proposed to my now wife and went really down the rabbit hole of the chemistry, history, and marketing behind diamonds.

Lab-made was a no brainer, I got a flawless and huge stone for the price I would have paid for a crappy 1ct from DeBeers. My only regret is that whatever I paid for the diamond will still be way over-market in a few years but well, had to get married at some point. I guess I'll get her a golf-ball-sized diamond for our 10th anniversary.

[poisonborz]

Why and how became diamonds a necessity of marriage in the US? Did your fiancé really expect a diamond, and would have she be disappointed by something that has only worth to you?

[Spivak]

It's all kind of arbitrary, some things catch on. Rings as signs of commitment and everlasting love go as far back as ancient Rome. Precious metals like gold for the actual ring symbolize the same thing because they don't rust. And DaBeers had the right messaging at the right time to popularize diamond, a white stone that matches a wedding dress, is clean and pure meshing well with Christianity in the US, and was already mythologized as the hardest and unbreakable.

It's the same symbolism for why it's popular for guys' wedding rings to be made out of super strong, super hard metals.

People give DaBeers too much credit for what was an extremely natural extension to the engagement ring. Advertising only gets your foot in the door, it does have to be a reasonably good idea for it to take on a life of its own.

[dimgl]

Women expect it. It's that simple.

[JellyBeanThief]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5kWu1ifBGU has the high level overview.

[ninetyninenine]

A lot of women want some sort of tribute as proof of your love. It's common in the animal kingdom and diamonds are debeers method of capitalizing on it for humans.

If debeer didn't exist, something else would exist in its place, because the root of this is not debeer. The root is female nature.

It's better this way to artificially jack up the price of diamonds. Because then you can find people who are selling the diamond at an undercut price and satisfy the female instinct. Is the diamond mined? How would she know?

Otherwise if debeers didn't do this, women may influence the culture to latch onto some other form of tribute that can't be made artificially. Gold let's say.

[sam_goody]

I would think Moissanite is a no-brainer.

It has a much better shine, is cheaper, and (anecdotally, in my circles), is just as cool.

Unless she wants a "real diamond", in which case lab-grown is no good either.