signet Rings in Traditional Highland Attire.

[Cygnus]

Quite right!

I don't know many British married men who do wear a wedding ring---its just not done. Interestingly, I have noticed at the last few weddings that we have attended the "happy couple" each had a wedding ring. Perhaps its becoming a modern trend?

That used to be the way of things here in the states as well.

I still have a living great grandmother (who will be 95 this year), and she says that my great grandfather didn't wear a wedding band. Apparently women wore (and still wear) wedding rings to show men that any advances or attempts at courtship would be inappropriate. In my great grandmother's day it wasn't socially acceptable for women to make such advances, so men didn't wear wedding bands. As times and accepted social behavior changed, men started wearing wedding bands for the same reason - to show interested women that the men were already spoken for.

It's interesting to see how (and where!) things change over time.

[Tobus]

That's interesting, Cygnus. My grandparents were married in 1941, and until the day my grandfather died, he wore his wedding ring all the time, never taking it off. He was only about 8 years younger than your grandmother (if I'm doing the math right), but apparently had a completely different outlook on the subject of men and wedding rings. Maybe regional variations in tradition are at work.

[Cygnus]

That's interesting, Cygnus. My grandparents were married in 1941, and until the day my grandfather died, he wore his wedding ring all the time, never taking it off. He was only about 8 years younger than your grandmother (if I'm doing the math right), but apparently had a completely different outlook on the subject of men and wedding rings. Maybe regional variations in tradition are at work.

It could be - all of my grandfathers wore wedding bands, and the one great-grandfather that I remember also wore one. It may have been that the trend was changing at about that time (or that my Grandfather simply couldn't justify buying a wedding band in the middle of the Great Depression and was clever in his justifications to my grandmother!).

[JerseyLawyer]

I would say that the class ring takes the place of the signet ring - it is the ring one wears on one's right hand. I wear my class ring regularly (it's the only ring I ever wear), so I might have a bias.

While I've found links for class rings at the finer UK Universities, I think that might be a trans-Atlantic import of recent vintage. I can't say I ever saw an Englishman wearing a class ring in the year I lived there.

The issue is more simplicity in dress. Unless you are playing the part of the greedy merchant prince, a man simply does not wear a ring on every finger and a few bejeweled necklaces. Unless, perhaps, he is of more Mediterranean descent, since it's a cultural thing.

[Tobus]

Agreed! The only rings I wear are my wedding band on my left hand and my class ring on my right hand. That's what most people wear around here, and the class ring is about as much of a status symbol as we get (those of us who attended one of the major universities in Texas all recognize the significance of them and can spot fellow alumni or 'the enemy' by these rings).

Even my grandfather, who was class of 1941 from the same university, always wore his. I suppose it's the American version of the signet ring.

[Jock Scot]

JerseyLawyer.

I think that the university tie and the class ring are more comparable, the signet ring is a very personal thing and has very little to do with anyone else apart from the signet ring's owner and his family.

[Bugbear]

Thank you, cajunscot, for the information. I know very little about the masons; and I regularly disregard what my family and step family has to say about these things... As far as I know, he was the only person in the family or step family who was a mason.

JerseyLawyer points out that the class ring could take the place of the signet ring. I suppose that is more what I intended with my question about the other group related rings. It wouldn't make sense to call a ring identifying one's membership in a group a signet ring, or form of personal identification.

I do not regularly wear necklaces. However, I was given a simple pendent like necklace, a quartz crystal on a satin-like string, in a ceremony, and I do wear that ever so often, mostly as a remembrance of sorts.

[JerseyLawyer]

I think that the university tie and the class ring are more comparable, the signet ring is a very personal thing and has very little to do with anyone else apart from the signet ring's owner and his family.

Sorry, Jock, I meant it more in the sense that traditionally, a man wears his wedding ring on his left hand, and his signet on his right, so a class ring a different "right hand option". I wouldn't wear both a signet ring and a class ring at the same time.

[Jock Scot]

Sorry, Jock, I meant it more in the sense that traditionally, a man wears his wedding ring on his left hand, and his signet on his right, so a class ring a different "right hand option". I wouldn't wear both a signet ring and a class ring at the same time.

As most people are right handed the signet ring is worn on the left hand----that way the ring does not get in the way of writing and believe me, it does! Left handers usually wear the signet ring on the right hand for the same reason. There is no "right or wrong" hand as far as signet rings go.

[Bugbear]

MacLowlife's post makes me wonder how often the wax needs to be cleaned out of a signet ring.

Also makes me wonder what Lord Lyon does to the rings, when people wear rings with other people's heraldry, in the case where defacing the ring might ruin a historical artifact...