Politics of Gems
My college fellowship staffworker got engaged a few days ago, not by a diamond ring but by an emerald. (I'm not sure if it's emerald, but most likely, since she noted that it was a green stone). Why emerald? She has cultivated a ministry of social justice and cultural diversity. In light of this, not getting a diamond is a protest and safeguard against the abuse in diamond mining practices.

A note to ponder: using diamonds as a gem for engagement ring has been much of an American phenomenon and not a global phenomenon historically. The use of other gems is not that unusual. Then again, in our age of proliferated American culture (80's culture especially, surprisingly) and heavy marketing by deBeers and such, diamonds could now be the default global engagement bobble. In fact, many gemologists estimate the value emeralds as more than diamonds. Although you should also investigate emeralds for potential abuse because much of the world's emeralds comes from the dangerous mines of the volatile nation of Columbia (and Venezuela? Are Venezuela's mines dangerous?).

A means of bypassing the diamond trade is to purchase man-made diamonds which are more pure, cheaper, and less blemished than mined diamonds. To build up the reputation of synthetic diamond, such gems are touted as "cultured diamonds" just as there are "cultured pearls." This fairly new diamond industry has been a growing threat to the conglomerate of diamond mining/monopolizing families. Such families have worked to develop machinery to distinguish mined diamonds from made diamonds; and the distinction is the cultured form is "too perfect" and splits a beam of light at a particular spectrum and diffraction. But does the populace care? Those families only want to protect their businesses. Would you want a diamond that was synthetic but pure or natural but possibly obtained through abusive practices or avoid diamonds altogether?

Why diamonds at all? I think they represent purity and strength, right?