Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-08-21
The Wedding Ring.
From the New York Times. ]

ring. his is not strange. The wedding
ring has been fruitful source of woes
unnumbered, which any heavenly goddess
might sing with great applause should
she feel so disposed. Tales of the utmost
horror have been told of bridegrooms,
who, at the moment when the clergyman
pauses for the ring to be produced, can
not find it. Nothing has ever shown
half SO much skill in self-concealment as
the wedding ring. 1t will hide in the
corner of waistcoat pocket in such a
way as to defy discovery, and it will
transport itself from one pocket to an
other, thus compelling the bridegroom
to ransack every one of thirteen distinct
pockets. Nervous men-and who is not
nervous when personally undergoing the
marriage eeremouy-frequently drop the
wedding ring on the church floor, where
it will roll the entire length of the build
ing to conceal itself in some inaccessible
crack. Sometimes it finds or makes a
hole in the pockes, by means of which it
penetrates into the interior OF the BRIDE
groom's clothing, and even into his boots
so that it is quite common occurrence
for weddidg to be interrupted while the
bridegroom retires behind the pulpit and
devotes half an hour to searchiug for the
ring and getting his boots on again. As
boots, and as a new boot when once re-
moved cannot alwas be dragged on again
without boot-hooks, the wedding guests
are sometimes treated to the spectacle Of
a bridegroom going through the last half
of the ceremony with one boot in it's
proper place and the other held in his
left hand. There was time when the
careful Western man always kept the
wedding ring in his mouth until the
clergyman called for it, but this custom
has now fallen into disuse. Fastidious
clergymen and brides, who have con-
tracted the conventional ideas of the
East, objected to the use of warm, moist
ring. Moreover, in his embarrassment,
the bridegroom often failed to disting uish
between the ring and his tobacco, and
found, when it was too late, that he had
that is to say, that the ring was miss
ing. Then, too, there were several un-
fortunate Dridegrooms who unintention-
ally swallowed wedding rings, and thus
laid themselves open to misconstruction
There was one man, reported to be Of
misery habits, who, doubtless inadver-
tently swallowed avoiding ring known
to be of considerable value, and choked
to death in the process. This
would naturally have seriously incon-
venienced the bride, had not her broth
ers-two practical men-been present.
With great presence of mind the brothers
removed the choked bridegroom to the
rear of the church, where they recovered
the ring with their hunting knives, and
pressing an eligible young man into the
service, enabled their sorrOwing sister to
be married after delay of only ten min
utes. Still, one instance like this does
not compensate for the many cases in
which swallowed rings have produced
suffering and inconvenience, and it is no
wonder that the custom of holding the
ring in the mouth has become absolete.
The freedom of divorce which prevails
in many of our States, must inevitably
render the wedding ring unpopular
Every time wife is divorced, she natur-
ally wishes to take off her ring. If it is
made small enough to remain safely on
the finger, it is very apt to become so
tight at the end of two or three months of
matrimonial felicity that it cannot be re-
moved. Hence, with a view to contin-
gencies, the Illinois wife always has her
ring made several times too large for her,
and keeps it in place with a smaller ring,
technically known as the guard ring. 1t
is evident, however, that the guard ring
is liable to become permanently fixed on
the finger, so that this device, specious
as it may appear, is really useless. The
remedy is to abolish wedding rings alto
gether, and to omit from the ceremony
any allusion to the ring
The wedding ring is the survival of the
period when marriage was held to be a
sacrament, and was supposed to be Of
eternal duration Now that we have re-
jected this belief, and hold that marriage
is business affair, temporary partner
ship, the improperly of clinging to the
symbolic ring is manifest. In the place
of it the western reformers now propose
to substitute neat and inexpensive
bracelet, made so as to admit of dozen
notifications of pattern, and thus suited
to be used half dozen times 1t is to be
placed on the BRIDES wrist the day before
the wedding, so as to avoid all chance Of
its being mislaid, and the wedding SER
vice is to be changed in such way that
instead of mentioning ring, the clergy
man will merely refer to stthe bracelet
annexed to the bride and marked Exhibit
A.'' Nta
Being provided with a clasp, the bride
can take it off at any time, and as it is
not very valuable intrinsically, the hus-
band is saved from the temptation of
melting it down and selling it the week
after marriage. 1t seems as if this admir-
able substitute for the wedding ring
would meet all reasonable demands, and
we may expect to see it universally adop-
ted throughout the West at very early
dav