Show J we now oft un JDA AM NW aa ia X v av V 1 F M 10 0 ai A g Z t wi 4 4 0 y qa W R RIC A r t am wa W az X 4 B by LOUISE M COMSTOCK heard of a june without weddings or a juno wedding without an ea elaborate borate trousseau pounds of rice alen delss wedding march and a shiny ring for the fourth finger of the halde of all the traditions surrounding the ancient and honorable wes rites of Mar marriage ringe and there are many from the telltale tell tale ring and button in the wedding coke cake to prophecies of romance between the maid of honor and the best m man an the tradition behind the wedding ring boasts the grea greatest antiquity as aa well agthe aa the widest practice this fact may explain why the jewelry symbols of erf marriage today combine the ilie materials we nye hold bold clio choicest leit and are the products of infinite labor rand and skilled craftsmanship As far back as aa we can trace race the marriage ceremony in history through the varying customs custom of periods and races we find that the ring la is hie he one thing constant in it tills this ring itself has changed froma from a plain and somewhat heavy band crudely hammered out of iron to its intricate nod and artistic modern form to rm if i has served ns its a pledge of affection and a plight of troth as well as aa a mark 0 ox actual union brides have boria worn it on wrist ana and thumb as aa well as on the fourth finger but t h his aa remained a symbol ol 01 of love and an accepted part of the marriage ceremony the poet SwIn bume claimed that rebekah was wag the first bride to we wear ar a wean wedding g ring though phoui h it ft more likely was an iron bracelet that isaac gave ills his heaven selected bridet bride the be tombs of syria and egypt and the relics of greek and rom roman i an civilizations give evidence that the custom arose among the early people of asia and egypt and passed from them into europe the married woman of egypt wore a ring set with a tiny key to symbolize her custodianship of lier her husbands house the roman matron wore a similar ring curved carved with tiny knobs to represent the keys to her husbands estate or witha with a seal with which she sealed the doors of tho the wine closets against thirsty servants with all my earthly goods I 1 thee endow Is apparently as aa venerable a part of the marriage ritual as the ring itself two thousand years ato ago it was customary to engrave tho nuptial ring with pretty sentiments even as it is 13 today an ancient greek ring wars bears characters which translate honey and bany many a bride of the classic period wore a band inscribed faith immortal or with the names hames of herself and lier her lover the bride of tho the roman tribune wore a ring en graved engraved with the star or crescent that was his in cipf lignin geln in the ruins of pompeii have been found rings engraved with two clasped hands and martin luther gave ills lils bride a ring adorned with the symbols of the church the custom of wearing the wedding ring on the fourth finger of the hand may again bo be ascribed to the egyptians it was a common belief among them that a nerve ran directly from that finger to the heart Then the romans omans who believed that tills this nerve was a veina continued the practice and there have been few deviations from ILI it the english maid of two centuries ago may have chosen chokn to wear her wedding hand band on her thumb but that was because fashion in her day demanded such an ornate affair that the customary fl finger ger adla would not carry it the dusky bride of india wears her wedding ring on her thumb even today but to her a ring is necessary only during the first six weeks of marriage after that it is ro melted and shaped into a more pretentious ornament in egyptian hebrew and very early roman literature the ring given by a youth to the maid of lits his choice seems usually to have been merely a pledge of love its we use for tho the plighting alighting plight ing of troth lias has been definitely established as early as the second century B D C Q in tho the of the christian era that stern stem churchman ter tull lani the women of his time forbearing for wearing any other ornament than the ring given thim them by their future husbands husband 3 the earliest german governments ern menta ments provided that a check be made on those who gave engagement rings to determine that reality should succeed romance munce ro both chaucer and shakespeare Shakespea io mention tho the interchanging Infer changIng of rings as a promise of marriage the same ring served for both betrothal and marriage until a comparatively recent date indeed it was not until the Cromwel llan era in england Englan rl that the custom of buying two rings became common among those who could afford it IL tiie the trend today seems to be towards more and better rings for it now has haa become common forthe groom to td reave a ring in a double ring ceremony and there here Is considerable evidence that men will soon begin to wear engagement rings as well while the exchange of the wedding hand band his long ing been customary in germony germany and other european countries and was for centuries an of vie the grek greb church ritual it has received new in A A at I 1 iri 2 fra 2 1 21 1 X vo W br A OD V k i al t A A 9 impetus from the modern spirit which claims per feat equality for both parties in the union ovid roman poet of the first century wrote of bf a ring rim soon destined to encircle the finger of a beauteous girl a ring having no worth except the loye iove of the giver ile he sang obviously of his beloved coranna Corl nna and of oc a ring of little intrinsic value for until shortly after hla his time ringi were of iron brass silver agate and other ral materials te but seldom of gold and even after the first century gaid rings were worn wom only liy by the wealthy the early italian craftsman benvenuto cellini wrought in gold with consummate skill but he worked only tor for popes and kings with abo invention of plating processes gold became a practical Ucal ns as well as aa the most precious metal and was adopted universally for the wedding ring not until 1900 was the substantial wide goldring gold ring replaced by a narrower end and more ornate bund band of oc platinum abday considered the most durable beautiful and malleable of metals the jeweler designates fis as an engagement ring one of which the part encircling the finger Is narrow enough for a wedding ring to be worn wom beside it true to its tradition the modern engagement ring la Is elaborate the original key replaced replace dby by a diamond the paradoxical symbol of innocence and power the modem wedding ring Is either carved with ora orange blossoms ivy or oak pr or set with tiny diamonds diamonds are pure carbon sort of sublimated white coal being carbon they have agrain a grain like that of wood which Is to the jeweler their most important characteristic for the grain of the diamond technically described as its lines jines of cleavage allory tills this substance which Is so BO bard it ft can bo be cut only by another dia diamond moud to be manipulated in a way otherwise impossible ri diamond lamond cutting was once a tedious otedious process the v rubbing robbing of two diamond surfaces together by hand until the proper plans planes were attained the r e hunks chunks thus ellmina eliminated ted were wasted whereas where the modern method of cutting by machine preserves them theato to be cuento cut into smaller stones it was by perfecting a diamond cutting machine so accurate that the minute stones used so much today in stone paved jewelry often so small that thal it takes from to of them thein to make up a carat in weight and an ounce requires caits carats that new york city about the time of the world war succeeded amsterdam holland as the diamond cutting center of the world even though modern modem machinery Is 15 almost foolproof fool proof so BO that one man can superintend as aa many as 20 machines machine 4 at once diamond cutting Is still a laborious process in which the slightest miscalculation may mean meah disaster and in spite of rigid economy almost GO 00 per cent of the original stone Is lost the rough atone must first bo be subjected to expert examination to determine its greatest possibilities once boned th the elines lines of cleavage have hae been decided up upon on and flaws located the expert scratches an the surface with another diamond the lines on which it should be split the cleaver next adjusts adjust his steel wedge along these ec scratches an and strikes upon li it with a mallet upon the direction force forc ennd anil snap of 0 his blow depends the future value of the stone f 3 thus roughly lopped into the shape the ft dax mond la is cemented to th the endom end of a metal tong tone ahns fixed beyond the possibility of vibration the tong Is clamped into the arm of the sawing machine adjusted to operate for only the required distance and the cutting begins A disk of bronze the hardest metal alloy known measuring inch in thickness revolving some soine three thousand to four thousand times a minute and charged with ollye olive oil and diamond dust dost bleeg slowly into the stone it takes such a saw an entire day to work through one carat of diamond as far about as across an ordinary pencil lead the smaller facets are ground orr oft on a horizontal disk of iron charged wit with holland oil and dust embedded in this comparatively soft metal metar to offer friction and revolving two thousand four hundred times ft a minute platinum settings are made to fit a particular stone platinum cornea combs to the jeweler in ii a button batton to nIso BO called because of the rounded shape given it by the crucible of hessian sand in which the tha hot metal la Is cooled or rolled out in A u thin sheet platinum for on rings Is again rolled between two wheels grooved to allow square openings between them into rods approximately approximate lyas as thick as the baud band ofa ring it Is with them theS the craftsman works 1 the rod la Is first bent round around a mold of a prescribed finger size for a wedding ring it la Is soldered together with palladium a kindred metal I 1 which melts at a few degrees less than degrees fahrenheit the moling melting point of platinum when the setting betting Is wider than tho the band it most mast be built up of another piece of platinum fixed lal la place on the band with wires and soldered securely the ring la IS rounded ano an openings are made with d a saw no thicker than a horsehair horse hair bale had held taut between the endsor ends of a brace the shape of a flattened U when a bost opening mut amt be made for a stone a hole Is bored through the metal and the saw strung through the craftsman Is 19 guided only by his eye a pair of tongs for measuring the stone to befitted bo fitted and the artists de design on tissue or celluloid before win him y V the modern diamond set wedding band Is grooved all the way a round around 1 the fiott bottom oin of tho the groove perforated to allow an opening for the bottom of each stone the finest of our modem kodim engraved rings are also handmade hand made carved out with a mechanical perpendicular bore that la is guided by hand band when the ring has been washed in water and polished shed on a rapidly revolving buffer it Is ready to be set the smaller stones are beaded into the alie box opening prepared for them by four almost almoite invisible but bat nevertheless secure project projections lOns pushed flown down over them from the surrounding platinum when the stone Is large it is set in fine claws so that it may stand alone in its beauty and reflect light from as many sides as possible blei and Is set off only by a body guard of smaller stones set with geometric simplicity in the shank ot of the ring such a ring find hn an accompanying wedding band set et with stones to match are tio 06 june I 1 1928 version of these age old sy of loie loic and marriage s r |