The answer might surprise you. We have this idea that diamonds have been with us forever. And of course, in one sense they have been. Most of them, at a couple of billion years old, have been around for about as long as multi-celled organisms.

What hasn’t been with us as long, however, is the culture that surrounds them. Today three-quarters of couples marry using diamond rings. And because they’re so pervasive in our culture, we think they must always have been around. We have this notion that diamonds have been a part of marriage for as long as we’ve been marrying. Go back to ancient Rome or Carthage and you’ll find people slipping diamond rings onto each other’s fingers. Continue reading →