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The most active thread over the weekend was the Gaza war thread which I've already discussed and will skip today. The second most active thread was titled, "Why do some women think it's acceptable to get engaged without a ring?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. Before getting to a discussion of that that thread, my last post in which I changed the format to include more paragraph breaks was universally disliked. So, I am returning to the previous one paragraph per post format. The original poster of this thread says that both her sister and a friend recently got engaged and neither received a ring. The original poster believes that an engagement ring has important symbolic importance and thinks that getting engaged without a ring suggests that the guy is not taking the engagement seriously. Those responding suggest that the couples may be planning to purchase rings later which allows them to pick them out together and get the rings sized correctly. The original poster says that the couples in this case have no plans to purchase rings. Several posters say that they did not want engagement rings for various reasons and others who did receive rings don't wear them. Some of these posters do wear wedding bands. However, a number of posters don't wear engagement or wedding rings even if they have them, which several don't. They have decades or longer marriages and simply don't like rings or jewelry. These posters don't see any connection between a ring and commitment to marriage. A number of posters don't think it is really the original poster's business what other couples choose to do about rings and consider any concern that original poster has about it to be an issue with her rather than the others. To some extent, attitudes towards rings were related to ideas about feminism. Some posters believe that feminism is incompatible the the suggestion that a women deserves an engagement ring simply because of her gender. Others argued that they could be feminists while still following some traditional gender norms. Another reason cited for passing on engagement rings was some posters' dislike for the diamond industry. Much of this thread was sidetracked to off-topic discussions such living together rather than getting married, what women get out of marriage in exchange for what they give up, and the aforementioned debates about feminism.