Wedding Ring Curiosity

This isn’t really language related, it’s more culture related so I guess it applies here. In Poland they wear their wedding rings on their right hands and when I came back to the States I found that people liked to tell me my wedding ring was on the wrong finger, at first I kept it on the right finger just 'cause I was used to it, but then I got sick of being asked. I had tried at the beginning in Poland to wear it on the left but then my wife’s grandmother told me that that’s where widows/widowers wear their rings…

So here’s my question… What finger does your country wear their wedding rings on, and for the eastern people who don’t wear rings… how does your country/culture denote marriage…or does it?

In NZ couples wear there wedding ring on the wedding finger… heh. I couldn’t think of any other name that we call it… 4th finger on the left hand. Though, since the Civil Union bill was put through, people who have had a civil union also wear a ring too. Or not…

When I got engaged in Germany in the 60s we first wore the ring on our left hand as a symbol of engagement and then when we got married, the (same) ring was put onto the right hand. Things may have changed…

We wear the wedding rings on the 4th finger of our left hand in Japan, but many people especially men don’t wear their rings. My husband and I exchanged our rings at our wedding ceremony and I have worn it since then, but my husband wore it first three days from the wedding because he simply didn’t like wearing rings. I think it is because wearing the wedding rings is quite new in our culture.

In Brazil, the wedding ring is used in the right hand while people are engaged, and then, in the left hand after the marriage. A long time ago, widows, mainly women, I suppose - used to have both rings (theirs and the one of the dead spouse) together in the left hand.
Notice that the engaging ring and the wedding ring is the same, only it is adjusted to the other finger. Commonly, the jewellery where you buy the ring offers this service for free. It’s different from what I see in American movies, in which it seems that the engagement ring is only for women and has a brilliant in it, and the wedding ring only appears in the scene after marriage. Any American to comment on this?

This is the same as here. Traditionally, a women received a ring on engagement with a stone and she wore that on her left hand. The husband didn’t wear any engagement ring. Then when they were married, they exchanged more plain rings and both wore that (the woman worse here engagement and her wedding ring). My mum wears both of her rings, but some of friends who have been married recently only wear one ring.

Oh, not really the same. All of this is on the left hand :smiley:

UK - as New Zealand.

Also, I know women who aren’t currently married or engaged who wear a ring on that finger, just to show that they aren’t interested in a relationship right now.

Humm… I guess that for women, mainly, the wedding ring also brings a certain social status… they are the lucky ones in a world too much similar to the frightening “sex and the city” scenario… :wink:
(I mean, the series scenario, not the movie one… :wink:

For my second marriage we didn’t use any rings at all (we were in our non-conformist hippy phase) and now that I am widowed I regret that I don’t have a ring to twiddle.

In Russia, as in Poland, wedding ring is wore on 4th finger of right hand. Widows/widowers wear ring on left hand.

http://bit.ly/tke6M

In the US, women (only) generally wear an engagement ring (which is usually a ring with at least one diamond) on the ring finger (4th) of the right hand after the marriage proposal until the wedding day. This is often purchased as part of a “set”, meaning the engagement ring AND the wedding band “match”, or resemble one another (or in other words, they "complement each other) and the wedding band is kept by the man until the wedding day. During the wedding, the man and woman generally exchange wedding bands, which are then worn on the ring finger of the LEFT hand (by both people) thereafter. The woman often wears both the engagement ring and the wedding band after marriage, on the same finger, with the wedding band first and the engagement ring second (on top). Sometimes the woman will choose not to wear the engagement ring, but most often she does.

So I went to Victoria secret yesterday and the checkout woman told me my rings were very sparkly. Thanks

We had this discussion when my wife and I married, she is Chinese. I noticed that not a single Chinese person I knew wore wedding rings. The Chinese will buy them and exchange them at the wedding but will not wear them afterwards. According to my wife, this is because they are afraid a people chopping off the finger to steal the ring.

We ultimately decided that, for us, wedding rings were just expensive jewelry that did not mean anything to us and did not buy any.

“In Russia, as in Poland, wedding ring is wore on 4th finger of right hand. Widows/widowers wear ring on left hand.”
Yeah, and in Russia, wedding rings are traditionally solid and plain (meaning no jewelry or ornamentation), made of gold. Yet, this changes over time, so diamond wedding rings are not that uncommon (my wife has one with a small diamond). In fact, the only real requirement is that the ring must be made of gold.

And there are also engagement rings, worn on the right hand. They differ from wedding rings in that they are made of silver (or any whitish metal). There is no official ceremony for engagement, though.