Only synthetic diamonds are sure to be free of explotative production methods and sure to keep money out of the hands of DeBeers.

Buying a natural diamond today is like buying fur - abetting needless suffering and death for a luxury bauble. The sooner it goes out of fashion the better. Synthetic diamonds, while currently more expensive, are entirely indistinguishable from the natural product that has funded so many wars and enriched so many evil people at the expense of so many poor.

I don't get it? Why not just get a sapphire or a ruby, or hell, a CZ. I mean shit who cares. You're in love. Marry the woman, quit thinking about the damn ring.

That was the only way you could show your love? Buying a hunk of carbon? You want to be romantic, then do something romantic. A hunk of carbon just says "Look at her finger. See how rich I am."

The diamond my husband gave me (before people were really thinking about diamond-related conflict in the world) has a "flaw" that is easily visible with the naked eye: a chunk of black carbon. I like it much better than I would a "perfect" diamond, it shows how the diamond was formed, the stone is like a small, decorative geological specimen. I also like it that I could recognize that stone even if it were taken out of the ring. How boring it would be to have a diamond that looks like every other diamond!

He can't think of a married woman he knows who doesn't have a diamond engagement ring? That strikes me as very bizarre. Although I also run with a lucky, middle class crowd, most of the married men and women I know have beautiful, original rings with lots of thought and artistry put into their designs. The rings may or may not have precious gems in them. The point of the rings was to symbolize the marriage, not the wealth or insanity of the groom. Maybe my friends are just more creative, self-confident and sensible than the writer's friends.

I have always thought diamonds were vulgar, even before I knew their sordid origins. When a newly engaged woman is flashing her new diamond for her pals, they are all thinking one of two things. "Wow, this ring is a monster! He must be insanely rich or a fool with a long term debt. More likely, the latter". Or they're thinking, "This ring is a joke! Either he's a cheapskate, or he's not sure he wants to get married. More likely, the latter". I can't imagine why any of these sentiments fills the bride with glee, but they do.

By the way, aside from the human exploitation involved in mineral extraction, the environmental damage is horrendous.

There is no such thing as "conflict-free" anything. Every goddamn thing you eat, drink, smoke, wear, and wipe your ass with wasted energy to be produced, was created by killing something else, someone along the chain got ripped off/undersold/taken advantage of during one of the many transactions...and the the list goes on and fucking on.

So, all the fuck you are doing is conveniently placing the line just a little bit past where you just left your messy footprints. And unless you're riding a handcarved bicycle to create the solar-powered energy to run your computer, there's a smokestack somewhere working overtime pumping soot into the atmosphere just so you can write your feelgood screed about the evils of whateverthefuckyou'rebitchingaboutthisweek.

Remember, a naturalist is someone who built his house in the woods before you did. Please just recycle your bullshit somewhere else, because it ain't fertilizing anything worth cultivating.

Blah blah blah.

P.S.--A diamond ring is a dumb fucking way to show your love regardless of the faux issues the author was concerned with before buying one. A shiny rock on a shiny piece of metal just to have a steady fucktoy. Remind me again which gender is dumber.

without thinking about how "diamond symbolism" was essentially created from whole cloth by DeBeers. Wearing diamonds is like wearing a frigging billboard, and it ain't advertising Your Eternal Love.

I'm a married woman without a diamond engagement ring, or indeed a diamond anything. I do have an extremely minor ruby, a heirloom courtesy of a great-grandmother. Gracious, how substandard! I must start harassing my husband immediately, because the fact that he didn't buy me a sparkly on the occasion of our betrothal must mean that he doesn't love me. After all, A Diamond Is Forever! Retch.

I was surprised that the author didn't mention the fact that diamonds are hugely over-valued as well as tainted by conflict. Diamonds are much more plentiful then we are lead to believe and the diamond cartels keep the supply low thereby increasing the price (sound like any other valuable resources from conflict regions?). Not to mention that the desire to have a diamond is caused by very smart marketing by DeBeers and is a fairly recent phenomenon. He could have used the money he saved to put a down-payment on a house.

My happy take away from the piece the spirit and feeling of the last three paragraphs, and all the self-righteous carping and bitching in the letters section, by people who either didn't get to the end or were incapable of comprehending it, won't change that.

What a lovely way to bring it all home, Peter. Thank you.

I vote for diamonds. I love mine. I love the elegant simplity of diamonds. I love the way it refracts light. If you hold it up in bright sunlight in a window, the window frame will show all kinds of refracted rainbows. Every facet of the diamond is a prism. Science in real life. Just carbon and yet so different from graphite. And conflict free is a great compromise - we can vote with our wallet. Canada produces diamonds while employing a well paid and protected staff. I am willing to pay more for a diamond that doesn't kill. Let me have my cake and eat it too.