We presume there are still young men who get down on their knees and make formal proposals but we aren’t personally acquainted with them. The average couple today goes about it more casually. In the course of a conversation they may discuss marriage and find that both like the idea.
Perhaps the old way was better. At least it was clear-cut. Nowadays a girl often cannot be quite sure whether she is engaged or not. The young man may talk good-naturedly about “When we get married” or may give her his wings or fraternity pin without exactly explaining what the symbol is to mean. Most girls tell us they have been engaged two or three times. Perhaps this vagueness is one reason why they fall in and out of engagements.
When is a couple engaged? According to our thinking, two people are not engaged until they definitely agree that they want to marry each other ... not until they inform their friends and if possible their respective parents that they intend to marry ... and not until the man gives the girl some symbol to display that will tell the world she is engaged and off the marriage market.
Four out of five men who become definitely engaged give their fiancées an engagement ring and that is probably most practical because a ring has been the one accepted, universal symbol of betrothal for more than twenty-five hundred years. Originally the symbolism was less subtle. The ring originated in the days of marriage by capture when the ankles or wrist of the girl were bound with sweetgrass. As the bindings became purely symbolic only the finger was tied up, with an engagement ring. If you decide on a diamond ring (and more than three-fourths of couples do) they range in price from a few dollars to many thousands of dollars. According to one of the women’s magazines, more than half the engaged girls get diamond rings costing about fifty dollars.
Whatever the symbol adopted, it should serve the purpose of taking the couple “out of circulation” and to provide exclusiveness for each other. That is one of the basic conditions of an engagement. Exceptions can be made if the man is away for a prolonged period, but as a rule there should be no extra-curricular dating.
Here are some of the purposes that an engagement should serve in addition to taking you out of circulation:
—Engagement provides a period of deepening love and affection during which there is an awakening of sexual feelings which will make the couple yearn for the full intimacy which marriage permits.
—It serves as a period of planning for the future during which the two plan when they will be married, the kind of wedding they will have, where they will honeymoon, the sort of housekeeping arrangement they will make, where they will live, etc.
—It is a period of personality adjustment, of welding the couple into a union.
—It is a period of exploring each other’s interests to find what activities exist that both enjoy and can share.