Note 79 — Chapter I · Marriage Laws and Customs.
Reading edition
Wood’s “Wedding Day in All Ages,” vol. I., p. 94.
The Quakers and Mormons reject the wedding ring, because of its heathenish origin. Wood’s “Wedding Day in All Ages,” vol. II., p. 135.
The wedding rings of St. Louis, of France; of Margaret, daughter of the Earl of Warwick; of the wife of Duke John, of Sweden; of Martin Luther and Catherine Von Bora, his wife; the ring given by Henry VIII. to Anne of Cleves; that given by Phillip, to Queen Mary, and by Lord Darnley, to Mary, Queen of Scots, are described in Wood’s “Wedding Day in All Ages,” vol. II., pp. 145, 149.
Chaucer’s reference to the wedding ring, in his “Troilus and Cressida”; Shakespeare’s mention of the gemmal ring, in “Midsummer’s Night’s Dream”; and his use of the ring in “Two Gentlemen of Verona,” “Twelfth Night” and “Merchant of Venice,” with many traditions of the wedding ring, will be found interestingly presented in Wood’s “Wedding Day in All Ages,” vol. II., pp. 129, 149.
The custom of placing the ring upon the fourth finger of the left hand, according to the opinion of a writer in the British Apollo, in 1708, dates from the discovery of the convenience of the left hand for such ornament because less employed than the right and the fourth finger, less than others, was needed in ordinary use. See Knowlton’s “Origin of Wedding Superstitions;” Finck’s “Primitive Love and Love Stories.”