The Symbol of the Ring

With this ring, I thee wed

Shown are the rings my fiancé and I picked out for our engagement/Handfasting. I liked mine because the cut out on it made me think of the element of air. My fiancé’s ring is special. She has an allergy to some metals, so we had to be careful with what ring to select. This is a Stainless steel ring that is also a spinner. Meaning the outer ring with the decoration on it spins around the inner ring that slides onto the finger. It’s a very fun ring to fiddle with.

Its beginnings lie in the deserts of North Africa, where the ancient Egyptian
civilization sprang up along the fertile flood plains of the river Nile. This
river was bringer of all fortune and life to the Pharaoh’s people and from
plants growing on its’ banks were the first wedding rings fashioned. Sedges,
rushes and reeds, growing alongside the well-known papyrus were twisted and
braided into rings for fingers and larger bracelets for wrists.

The ring is of course a circle and this was the symbol of eternity for the
Egyptians as well as many other ancient cultures. It had no beginning and no
end, like time. It returned to itself, like life; and the shape was worshiped
in the form of the Sun and the Moon. The hole in the center of the ring is not
just space either; it is important in its own right as the symbol of the
gateway, or door; leading to things and events both known and unknown.

Wedding Rings are worn on the third finger of the left hand (The Ring Finger) because of the belief that the vein in the finger travels directly from the heart. This legend traveled from the Egyptians to the Greeks, then to the Romans who called this the ‘vein of love’ or the ‘vena amoris’. And so on and so forth.

The circle is a strong magical symbol and it has many meanins to many cultures. Some of those include: Inclusion, Wholeness, Focus, Unity, Nurturing, Reincarnation, Cycles, Initiation, Everything, Endless, Perfection, Womb, Unbroken, Centering, Timeless, Revolution, Infinity, Mobility, and Completion. It is not hard to see why the ring, a perfect circle, is used as a symbol of marriage.

The circle symbol meaning is universal, sacred and divine. It represents the infinite nature of energy, and the inclusivity of the universe. 

You might be wondering why then do Christians take the ring as such an important part of the wedding ceremony if the ring has pagan and magical properties. In truth, the wedding ring has little to no Christian religious significance. 

Like many other pagan symbols, the ring has been adopted into Christian ceremonies and rites. There is no biblical reference decreeing the wedding ring as a requirement.

What the ring means to me…
I think of the ring as meaning you are connected. The engagement rings are there to announce to the world that the couple are connected to each one another; and exchanging wedding rings is the act of binding to each other in a sort of contract. After all, Marriage is a contract when you really get down to it.
But that is not to mean I don’t believe in the romantic meanings of the ring as well. There is something so exciting about shopping for an engagement ring or a wedding ring. Looking for the perfect ring for your partner, then exchanging the rings and sealing it with a kiss and a hug is a wonderful and bonding experience. Announcing to the world that you have found the person you want to share the rest of your life with is a very exciting and happy experience.