Wendy Doniger’s new book The Ring of Truth: Myths of Sex and Jewelry brings us tales of bling from all over the world. In folklore, history texts, epics, mythology, pop songs, and the classics, all that glitters is always gold, or something like gold.
She asks, “Why are sex and jewelry, particularly circular jewelry, particularly finger rings, so often connected? Why do rings keep getting into stories about marriage and adultery, love and betrayal, loss and recovery, identity and masquerade?”
Nose-pins, bracelets, chokers, rings and anklets, ornaments are more than their aesthetics; they combine politics, gender equations, bank statements, status, and male promises. In recent times Pippa Middleton’s new husband opting to wear his wedding band is seen by society-watchers as a statement.
Jewels don’t just lie on the wearer silent and supine; they have back stories and a sense of purpose, and intentions that may be malignant, depending on love being true or untrue. Rings adorn, yet they slip off fingers and get lost, are swallowed by fish and found by fishermen, so that they can remind, in the final act of most stories, the man of his woman.
Nuptial or carnal, rings are imbued with rich imagery, colourful pasts and future plans. It is, after all, the tiniest approximation of the circle of life. The eternity ring, called so because it loops without a cut or break in design, goes on the ring finger with much pomp and ceremony.
Rings carry erotic messages; even confer special powers on the wearer. “Signet rings worn by men in 16th century Italy were often set with stones that were engraved with erotic images of naked women and were said to give them the power to command women,” Doniger writes. But, in the hands of a woman they could be powerless.
Rings are seen as extensions of fingers, hands, whole bodies. Meant to be worn for life. Showing commitment, loyalty, fidelity, love, lust, devotion, debt.... Which is why plain bands go from handwritten names on them to fingerprints. The need to personalise this smallest piece of jewellery goes back ages, right down to when Greeks and Romans used rings as tokens from the heart.
The church blessed it as an appropriate symbol of matrimony, after which there was no looking back for rings, so that by the 13th century they were sliding down fingers everywhere. “The giving of a ring on the occasion of marriage is mentioned in the 1559 Book of Common Prayer.”
Jewellery in its first form dates back 70,000 years, which Doniger points out, is probably when “we became genuinely human: Homo Adornatus”. A woman’s body parts have traditionally been compared to jewels, with precious and semi-precious stones coming to the poet’s or lover’s aid: “Pearly teeth, ruby lips, eyes shining like diamonds, golden hair”.
From Rama’s ring that Sita sees during their separation to the ring that reminds Dushyant of his wife Shakuntala, rings have played Cupid, matchmaker and even anti-amnesia medication. Rings can define morals and sociological strata; Marilyn Monroe’s gold-digger representation is preceded by Doris Day’s “professional virgin scenario of legitimation (‘Get the wedding ring before you go to bed with him’).”
All women are equal before rings, with wives and mistresses being bestowed these in similar measure. The mystical charge of this piece of jewellery is legend and Doniger gives it its due. She is probably the
first author to put all ring-related facts and fiction down in black
and white —where they continue to sparkle
not just as simple trinkets but as complicated relics and signature moves of the lovelorn and liars.