I love my diamond engagement ring, the weight of it on my finger, the sparkle, every once in awhile, I look down at it no matter what I'm doing and it makes me smile and feel like an utter princess.
Over the weekend, I attended a conference on marketing, and one of the things that was required reading was this article from 1982 published in the Atlantic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/304575/
It talks about how the diamond industry inculcated an entire century of Americans to associating diamonds with romance. Some of the crazy stuff they did: paid newspapers to publish descriptions of the diamonds worn by movie stars, had lectures in high school to teach girls about diamond engagement rings, developed the diamonds are forever idea to prevent resale, developed the eternity ring to respond to a flood of soviet small diamonds. I thought I'd share as interesting reading, it just blows my mind how it all came about