Wedding ring: Encyclopedia II - Wedding ring - Styles patterns fashions

Wedding ring - Styles patterns fashions

The plain gold band is the most popular pattern. Medical personnel commonly wear it because it can be kept very clean. Women usually wear narrow bands, while men wear broader bands.

In France and French-speaking countries, a common pattern consists of three interwoven rings. They stand for "faith, hope and love", where "love" equates to that particular type of perfect disinterested love indicated by the ancient Greek word agape. Provocatively, this pattern slides off quickly, because the rings flow over each other.

Men in Greek, Italian and Anatolian cultures sometimes receive and wear puzzle rings – sets of interlocking metal bands that one must arrange just so in order to form a single ring. Women wryly give them as a test of their man's chastity. Even when the man masters the puzzle, he still cannot remove and replace the ring quickly.

In North America, many married women wear two rings on the same finger: an engagement ring and a plain wedding band. Couples often purchase such rings as a pair of bands designed to fit together.

Engraving of Wedding Bands are also becoming very popular in the United States.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Styles patterns fashions", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki