ENGAGEMENT PROBLEM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 196, 19 August 1940, Page 11

ENGAGEMENT PROBLEM.

WHEN WIDOWS REMARRY.

WEARING OF FIRST RING

A correspondent would like to know if a widow should wear her wedding ring when engaged to another man.

This is a vexed question. It is not governed by any law. Rather is it a matter of choice. However, as the woman would wear the wedding ring of her second husband, it seems only proper that she should lay the wedding ring of her dead husband aside when she enters into a contract to marry another man.

The wedding ring is symbolic —being circular, and therefore unending—of unending fidelity. Everywhere, a ring is given when a men weds a maid. "With this ring I thee wed." In Catholic countries the ring is first blessed by the priest with holy water, signifying purity.

The engagement ring prefigures the' wedding ring. It is in no way essential to a betrothal. In recent years engagement rings have become more and more ornate and expensive, even though their Blender daintiness has been accentuated. In the pioneer days few young men could afford expensive engagement rings. Most of our grandmothers, for instance, were happy with something costing only a few pounds, and it wee a fortunate girl who received a ring set with a diamond. To get back to the question: There would be no harm in a woman wearing a new engagement ring above her old wedding ring, especially if she had children, and held her first husband in deep regard. However, it would be a compliment to her intended second husband to remove the old wedding ring, in token of the fact that she was about to begin a new life. "Till death us do part/' is the vow given in the hour when the ring is placed upon the finger. Logically, then, the widow is fully entitled to remove her ring. Death lias removed her husband, and she is free to contract another marriage.

Consideration of the problem lends weight to the argument that a newlyengaged widow should discard her old wedding ring on accepting a new lover's engagement ring.

But the lady must decide!