What is in a wedding ring?
Jun 19, 2008
THE early Christian Church rejected the wearing of wedding rings, calling it a pagan practice. However, Christians gradually adopted the practice.<br>No one can tell how far back the wedding ring dates.
DO marriage bands fall in the category of the inappropriate ornaments of gold and pearls mentioned in the Bible? Halima Shaban and Harriette Onyalla tell us why some couples do not exchange rings when making marriage vows
THE early Christian Church rejected the wearing of wedding rings, calling it a pagan practice. However, Christians gradually adopted the practice.
No one can tell how far back the wedding ring dates.
However, many believe the origin is based on an Egyptian custom of placing a piece of ring-money (used before coins were introduced) on the bride’s finger to indicate that she was endowed with her husband’s wealth.
The practice can also be traced even further back to the Seventh Century BC where a man encircled the body of a woman with a rope to keep her from evil spirits as well as bind her to himself.
However, the wedding ring was not worn by men. It was only until the World War II that soldiers began wearing wedding rings possibly to carry the love they shared with their wives to the battlefields or to show that they were foregoing family for country.
Unlike the engagement ring, the wedding ring is all-round with no beginning nor end. This is said to mean that while an engagement can be broken, a wedding or marriage is for life.
But ultimately, the story of the wedding ring is like the ring itself — without beginning and without end.
A story is told of Donnie Register whose wedding ring saved his life when it deflected a bullet. An antique trader from Mississippi in the U.S Register was at his shop when two men walked in asking to buy old coins.
He went to the back of the store to find the coins. However, his return was greeted with a gun pointed at his nose.
Register ducked, raising his left hand to his face. After the thugs had fled, Register realised the side of his face where the bullet scraped after being deflected was bleeding, his wedding ring was dented.
That bullet could have sent Register to kingdom come. “I knew being married was a good thing. I just didn’t know it was that good,†Register said afterwards.
However, the story is not likely to deter religious diehards who believe rings are not biblical.
Apollo Mubiru and his wife, Margaret, are about to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. However, Mubiru does not wear a ring because he is a Seventh Day Adventist (SDA).
“It is not written anywhere in the Bible that after marriage, we should wear rings,†he says.
Richard Kasumba, an Adventist pastor in Bugema, says the Biblical seal for a marriage union is the promise of exclusive, lifelong marital love and fidelity.
“When these vows are made, each partner becomes a seal on the heart of the other and no ring should be used to bind the marriage,†says Kasumba
Pastor Nsereko Male of Kireka SDA church says the SDA church considers a wedding ring as an ornament which the Apostle Paul discouraged Christians from adorning when he admonished against wearing ‘gold or pearls or costly attire’.
Nsereko says those who favour wearing the wedding ring feel that the ring affirms their marital status and commitment.
However, he says wearing a ring has a pagan origin. Nsereko points out that the practice of wearing the ring on the fourth finger is based on superstition that there is a love vein, which flows directly to the heart.
He argues that in the Bible the value of symbols is determined by their origin and meaning, adding that the origin of wearing a ring raises pertinent questions about the legitimacy of its adoption by Christians to represent marital commitment.
We cannot invest a pagan symbol with a sacred Christian meaning. This is exactly what has happened with the use of the wedding ring,†Nsereko says.
However, the Rev. Fr. Lawrence Kanyike, the chaplain of St. Augustine Chapel, Makerere University, says a ring is a symbol of marital commitment that binds people together.
The issue of origin is also the reason Islam does not support wearing of the wedding ring. According to islamqa.com, the wedding ring is not a Muslim custom.
“If it is believed that it generates love between the spouses, and that not wearing it will have an effect on the marital relationship, then this is regarded as a kind of jaahili belief.
There is no power and no strength except with Allah. It is, therefore, not permissible to wear a wedding ring under any circumstances.â€
The site, in which questions regarding Islam are answered, says the Prophet Mohammed forbade men from wearing gold.
“He saw a man wearing a ring of gold and he took it from his hand. But with regard to rings of silver or any other kind of metal, it is permissible for men to wear them even if they are precious metals,†it says.
THE early Christian Church rejected the wearing of wedding rings, calling it a pagan practice. However, Christians gradually adopted the practice.
No one can tell how far back the wedding ring dates.
However, many believe the origin is based on an Egyptian custom of placing a piece of ring-money (used before coins were introduced) on the bride’s finger to indicate that she was endowed with her husband’s wealth.
The practice can also be traced even further back to the Seventh Century BC where a man encircled the body of a woman with a rope to keep her from evil spirits as well as bind her to himself.
However, the wedding ring was not worn by men. It was only until the World War II that soldiers began wearing wedding rings possibly to carry the love they shared with their wives to the battlefields or to show that they were foregoing family for country.
Unlike the engagement ring, the wedding ring is all-round with no beginning nor end. This is said to mean that while an engagement can be broken, a wedding or marriage is for life.
But ultimately, the story of the wedding ring is like the ring itself — without beginning and without end.
A story is told of Donnie Register whose wedding ring saved his life when it deflected a bullet. An antique trader from Mississippi in the U.S Register was at his shop when two men walked in asking to buy old coins.
He went to the back of the store to find the coins. However, his return was greeted with a gun pointed at his nose.
Register ducked, raising his left hand to his face. After the thugs had fled, Register realised the side of his face where the bullet scraped after being deflected was bleeding, his wedding ring was dented.
That bullet could have sent Register to kingdom come. “I knew being married was a good thing. I just didn’t know it was that good,†Register said afterwards.
However, the story is not likely to deter religious diehards who believe rings are not biblical.
Apollo Mubiru and his wife, Margaret, are about to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. However, Mubiru does not wear a ring because he is a Seventh Day Adventist (SDA).
“It is not written anywhere in the Bible that after marriage, we should wear rings,†he says.
Richard Kasumba, an Adventist pastor in Bugema, says the Biblical seal for a marriage union is the promise of exclusive, lifelong marital love and fidelity.
“When these vows are made, each partner becomes a seal on the heart of the other and no ring should be used to bind the marriage,†says Kasumba
Pastor Nsereko Male of Kireka SDA church says the SDA church considers a wedding ring as an ornament which the Apostle Paul discouraged Christians from adorning when he admonished against wearing ‘gold or pearls or costly attire’.
Nsereko says those who favour wearing the wedding ring feel that the ring affirms their marital status and commitment.
However, he says wearing a ring has a pagan origin. Nsereko points out that the practice of wearing the ring on the fourth finger is based on superstition that there is a love vein, which flows directly to the heart.
He argues that in the Bible the value of symbols is determined by their origin and meaning, adding that the origin of wearing a ring raises pertinent questions about the legitimacy of its adoption by Christians to represent marital commitment.
We cannot invest a pagan symbol with a sacred Christian meaning. This is exactly what has happened with the use of the wedding ring,†Nsereko says.
However, the Rev. Fr. Lawrence Kanyike, the chaplain of St. Augustine Chapel, Makerere University, says a ring is a symbol of marital commitment that binds people together.
The issue of origin is also the reason Islam does not support wearing of the wedding ring. According to islamqa.com, the wedding ring is not a Muslim custom.
“If it is believed that it generates love between the spouses, and that not wearing it will have an effect on the marital relationship, then this is regarded as a kind of jaahili belief.
There is no power and no strength except with Allah. It is, therefore, not permissible to wear a wedding ring under any circumstances.â€
The site, in which questions regarding Islam are answered, says the Prophet Mohammed forbade men from wearing gold.
“He saw a man wearing a ring of gold and he took it from his hand. But with regard to rings of silver or any other kind of metal, it is permissible for men to wear them even if they are precious metals,†it says.