Male Wedding Rings - A Question ?
Q: I recently watched a 1927 movie called Sunrise - a masterpiece, IMHO -
about a man who plots to murder his wife for his painted woman and
during the attempt finds he can't go through with it and then learns how
much he really loves his wife.
Anyway, the man is wearing a wedding ring and at several points it
looked as though the director F.W. Murnau lit the scene (subtly, mind
you) to call attention to that shimmering object on the third finger of
his left hand. Why, thematically, he does this should be obvious even
from my brief decription of the movie.
But to my question, the film had a then-contemporary setting and I
remember thinking that a conspicuous wedding ring on a man's finger
looked a bit anachronistic in a 1927 setting. Was it? When did male
rings go from rare to common to just-about-universal (as they are
today)? Why? Was it purely feminism or a more-complicated story?
A:I'm sure the answer varies alot according to whom you ask and
what area they're from. But my 85-year-old friend was surprised to hear
that my fiance was going to wear one -- she was born in 1910 and got
married around 1935. She knew almost no men who wore one at the time (in
Pennsylvania) and it still seems to be a pretty novel concept to her.
To get a more well-rounded perspective -- ask people who were around
then! They're the ones who know, and most older people I know are
extremely lonely and would LOVE the opportunity to