Previous research has shown that the qualities of nuptial gifts among nonhumans and marriage-related property transfers in human societies such as bridewealth and dowry covary with aspects of mate quality. This article explores this issue for another type of marriage-related property transfer: engagement rings. We obtained data on engagement ring costs and other variables through a mail survey sent to recently married individuals living in the American Midwest. This article focuses on survey responses regarding rings that were purchased by men (...) acting alone and using only their own funds who then presented the rings while making surprise proposals of marriage (n = 127). Men marrying younger women spent more on rings, as did men who earned more money and whose fiancées earned more money. These findings suggest that the amounts spent on engagement rings, like bridewealth and dowry payments in other societies, reflect aspects of both male and female mate quality. (shrink)

Gigant v t︠s︡epi︠a︡kh -- Chelovek protiv mifov -- Mysliteli i kaznachei.

Materialism is the view that existence does not necessarily involve perceiving or being perceived, knowing or being known. Dialectics is the view that the universe is a system of entities in process of change, the dynamic arising from the impact of the parts on one another. The epistemology of Dialectical Materialism (Marxism) is therefore the view that truth (i.e. the correspondence of a sentence with fact) can be determined by the following rule: "Examine any alleged state of affairs as related (...) to and distinguished from a total environment, and you will know whether or not the sentence alleging that state of affairs is true." No special pedagogy is required for Marxist epistemology: the only rule is the usual rule of honesty and candor which bids us teach every subject as that subject actually is. (shrink)