A promise ring is a rather ambiguous little piece of jewellery. What is a promise ring, anyway? Yes, it is a pretty little ring, usually given by one person to another, but what does it mean? What is the wearer promising? What is the giver promising? Is there an official definition?

When I heard that an acquaintance had just received a promise ring from her boyfriend, I wondered what exactly that meant, but was too polite to ask. Does it mean she's engaged? Planning to be engaged? Or is the ring just a nice present from her boyfriend?

One Mac student (who wishes to remain nameless) believes that the promise ring is "a sort of pre-engagement ring, like you're promising to be engaged." The idea is that you wear the promise ring when you intend to get married, then when you actually decide to get married in the near future, you wear an engagement ring, and after the vows are spoken you wear a wedding band. It's a hierarchy of jewellery, in which each ring is more beautiful and expensive than the last.

Others feel that the promise ring is a "token of a certain level of commitment, although not quite engagement." In this case, the promise ring is an evolution of the fraternity pin--remember all of those movies set in the 1950s, where girls would scream hysterically "I've been pinned"?

It's a promise of fidelity, of monogamy. It's also a subtle message to all would-be admirers that the wearer of the ring is already taken, and they should stay far, far away.

A more cynical student feels that promise rings are just something guys give their girlfriends so that neither party experiences any guilt when they have pre-marital sex. This way, if the man is accused of using his girlfriend for sex, he can point to the ring on her finger, and remind her that she possesses a physical reminder of his long-term love and commitment. As we all know, however, some of these relationships do end, and the promise can be broken.

Of course, every cloud has a silver lining. After my friend's boyfriend of three years dumped her for another woman, she pawned the expensive promise ring he'd given her, and bought herself some new clothes. Revenge can be a wonderful, wonderful thing.

Parents often give their daughters a promise ring, as a symbol and reminder of the daughter's promise to abstain from sex until she receives the wedding ring. The question then becomes, if the daughter breaks her promise and loses her virginity, should she, morally speaking, also break the ring?

In my research, I also checked out what the Internet (source of all knowledge and wisdom) has to say on the topic. A search on Google turned up a bunch of message board sites, all featuring questions like mine, such as "What exactly is a promise ring? Is it a pre-engagement ring, and what's the point." Although everyone had the same question as me, no-one was posting any concrete answers.

The other half of the sites Google pulled up for me were jewellery sites, complete with pages and pages of "promise rings". These rings run from approximately 75 to 300 dollars each, and tend to be fairly small, gold, and set with small diamonds, opals or intertwined hearts. I pictured them dancing brightly on my as-yet-naked ring finger and sighed happily. I still didn't know, however, what I would be promising if I accepted such a ring.

One jewellery website, www.steer4.com, assures potential buyers that it is a "wonderful American tradition for men to give women their college pin or a Promise Ring." It then goes on to say that either a man or a woman could give a promise ring, and that the ring doesn't actually have to symbolize a romantic relationship, but that it could be given to a platonic friend, in "appreciation of a favour". The site doesn't seem to care why anyone buys a promise ring, as long as they buy it.

Hmm. Could the promise ring be merely a hoax of the jewellery industry, a cruel ploy to charm money out of emotional young lovers? Obviously, if all these jewellery sites have entire sections dedicated only to promise rings, it must be a lucrative product. Although it is true that love is a prosperous industry (just think of how many roses are sold on Valentine's Day), it is also extremely depressing to dwell on the fact that our most tender emotions are indirectly linked to some miserable miser's money-making.

Another site, www.ehow.com, (which claims to be the official "How To" site of the net), is a little more informative about ring etiquette. This site explains that promise rings, like engagement rings and wedding rings, ought to be worn on the ring finger of the left hand (the finger next to your pinky). Traditionally, a vein from this finger runs directly to the heart, making a ring worn here closer to the heart than rings worn on any other finger.

Delving further into ring wearing, the site explains that if students are "going steady", the boyfriend wears his girlfriend's class ring on his pinky finger, and she wears his class ring around her neck on a gold chain.

What the site fails to explain is the difference between "going steady", "being promised" and "being engaged". It seems that, just as every relationship is emotionally different, so is the meaning of every ring given.

Clearly, there is no black and white definition of the stages of love or the objects that accompany them. Those couples, friends, and daughters who choose to wear promise rings have no need to worry about anyone's definition of the ring's symbolism except their own.

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