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Last weekend, my partner and I got engaged. (Eek! Yay! Champagne bottle emoji!) Getting engaged is something we’ve been talking about doing for a while — yes, I knew it was coming. And I’m glad I did, because it meant I could book a manicure and plan my ‘fit. It also meant I could help choose the ring. We settled on a truly stunning (IMO) vintage emerald and diamond ring from Rock N’ Rose. And when it came to making the purchase, it seemed only natural that we would split the bill.
When I tell people that my partner and I decided to go halves on my engagement ring, it tends to elicit a wide range of responses: a raised, suspicious eyebrow. An “Oh, that’s… interesting.” Maybe even a thinly veiled look of pity.
Courtesy of Meg Walters
Courtesy of Meg Walters
It’s not that I expect absolutely everyone to go halvsies. Obviously, many women may not want to – and that’s fine! But I’m always a little surprised by these reactions. I had assumed that splitting the cost of the ring was something a lot of us modern women might be doing. It felt fair, feminist; a symbol of our partnership rather than a reminder of some kind of outdated gendered imbalance.
After all, things have moved on quite a lot when it comes to equality in male-female romantic relationships. For one thing, it has become the norm for both men and women to work. Research from ClearScore suggests that most couples are making an effort to contribute equally when it comes to finances: 40% of couples split their bills proportionately to income, while 51% split everything 50/50. Admittedly, there is still a long way to go when it comes to the division of labour, with women reportedly doing 36 hours of household tasks per week, while men do an average of 25. Nevertheless, this is an improvement on the zero hours that (many) men were doing 50 years ago.
However, despite this general push to make heterosexual coupledom more equal, surprisingly few couples make the same decision to go halves when it comes to the engagement ring. According to a 2023 study, 94% of partners who did the proposing paid for the engagement ring in full, and only 2% of couples reportedly decided to split the cost of the ring.
Then again, the more I think about it, these stats kind of check out. My algorithm (which has cottoned on to the fact that I’m getting engaged) is filled with a surprising number of young women who seem to believe pretty fervently that the ring should be something that the man and only the man pays for. And, even more strange, the general line of thinking seems to be: the bigger the ring he can buy, the better the man.
Just take the bizarre reaction to Belly’s engagement ring in The Summer I Turned Pretty. Videos went viral on TikTok, with fans of the show joking about its teeny-tiny size. “Jeremiah had to find the cheapest one,” one TikTok comment read. “And she was soooo proud of it too. Girl…cmon,” another read. Most people assumed that it was Jeremiah’s job to provide the ring — and most judged him for not being able to afford a bigger one. There was a similar outcry after Celine Song’s Materialists, which (spoiler) ends with Chris Evans proposing with a daisy ring. It’s meant to be a romantic gesture, but, instead, many women seemed to find it insulting. “The Materialists was a broke man’s fantasy. the flower ring???? at 37?????” one woman wrote on top of a TikTok video.
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Meg Walters
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