Australian Court Decides to Whom an Engagement Ring Belongs
May 22nd, 2007 by Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers & Families
I think the Australian court made the right decision here when asked to answer the question "Who gets the ring when an engagement is called off?" The answer is, of course, "him."
The story on the Australian engagement ring court decision is below. I guess I should be surprised that a woman had a $10,000 ring thrown away out of spite, but I've been reading divorce stories too long to be surprised over anything an angry woman does during a breakup.
The woman's father, who was complicit in the destruction of the expensive ring, also deserves condemnation. Given his behavior, it's not hard to see why the woman turned out the way she did.
Australian Court Rules Woman Must Pay for Tossed Engagement Ring
Saturday, May 19, 2007
It was to be their big, fat Greek wedding.
It turned out to be his big fat compensation after the ring ended up in a dustbin.
And a big fat, age-old question has been answered by a court: Who gets the ring when an engagement is called off? The answer: Him.
In early August 2005, Vicki Pappas and Andrew Vacopoulos were blissfully in love. The couple, in their late 20s, exchanged rings at their Sydney engagement party.
Just 10 days later they were parting. The intended bride removed her A$15,500 (£6,000) ring from her finger and placed it on a coffee table in front of members of her family, telling her distraught fiancé: “The wedding is off. Here, take the ring, I don’t want it.”
Her jilted fiancé responded: “I do not want the ring. It is a gift for you. You can keep it.”
After about half an hour he left.
Some six weeks later Pappas’s former fiancé called her at work, declaring his love for her and saying that he wanted her back. Unimpressed, she called her father and asked him to gather up and throw away all the gifts Vacopoulos had given her — including her engagement ring.
Her father obliged, prompting an anguished e-mail to Pappas from her ex-fiancé which said: “Your dad said that he tore up my photos and threw the ring in the garbage. Why is this happening? I don’t want it to happen.”
Enraged by the disposal of the engagement ring, Vacopoulos went to court, seeking orders that his intended bride repay the cost of the ring.
Couples everywhere might take notice of the magistrate’s finding: If an intended bride rejects her fiancé’s ring, she forfeits the right to claim the item as a gift. And much less the right to put it in the rubbish bin.
Read the full article here.
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May 22nd, 2007 at 12:24 pm
'Pity the same doesn't hold for the "profits" of a marriage, once rejected...
May 22nd, 2007 at 1:19 pm
"Justice Smart relied heavily on the legal precedents set down in a 1926 case, Cohen v Sellar, in which a court ruled that if a woman who had received a ring “in contemplation of marriage” later refused the conditions of the gift, then she must return it. That ruling also said that if a man refused to carry out his promise of marriage, he could not demand the return of an engagement ring."
The statement I completely 100% agree with.
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Hmm.. according to the article, he says "I do not want the ring. It is a gift for you." Sounds like a gift to me; I wouldn't let him off. Live, lose and learn. And accept responsibility for your decisions, even the ones that turned out to be mistakes. Other than that, I agree with ju1ce.
May 22nd, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Shows the rewards of avoiding marriage: no ring expense, no caring for wife expense, no divorce expense, no loss of assets after marriage.
Looks like she was the loser. Unless she simply hooked a better deal from some other guy?
This fellow is lucky. He should take his money and keep walking. By being awarded money from a woman, he is as rare in Australia courts as are polar bears in the Australian outback.
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:23 pm
The way I kind of read it Andy.. All of the "witnesses" are family members of the woman. Not sure how much bearing that should have which I'm glad wasn't taken into context when the final decision was made.
May 22nd, 2007 at 5:22 pm
A gift should be unconditional, but it begs the question why the man, and only the man, is expected to make such a gift.
May 22nd, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Well, ju1ce, that may be. The article appears to assume an objective voice, which could be way off. Regardless, it seems consistent with the e-mail, which, IF quoted accurately, seems like the jilted guy was still hanging on. The way I see it, to have a moral claim, he should've asked for it back asap after notification. We'll probably never know the truth. But I figure a guy shouldn't give a ring without being prepared to give it up. If he indeed refused to take it back, the risk of losing it was all his. It may be that the fellow is better off, but given his behavior (come on, taking it to court to get back the money!), it may be the woman who is better off. This story's moral is don't exceed your budget. If you have to sue to get it back, you should give something you wouldn't want to sue for. The other moral is "if she offers to give it back, take it."
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Some advice to guys: If your engagement has just fallen apart, and she offers you the ring back, TAKE IT. I note that she wasn't the one who originally described the ring as a permanent gift - that was HIM. Should she have thrown the ring away? No, but she had already offered it back, and he had told her that he didn't want it!
I go by the Miss Manners rule - if you have decided that you do not want to spend the rest of your life with someone for whatever reason, why on earth would you WANT the ring? But, I do wonder...if your engagement has been called off, and you offer the ring back, and the guy refuses to take it back...at what point can you decide his refusal is real, and dispose of the ring as you choose? I don't think she waited nearly enough time in this case, but she DOES appear to have been clear about what she wanted during the breakup. While this question would obviously not apply to *this* scenario, what would happen if, say, I were engaged to a man, broke off the engagement because I found out that he was cheating on me, and tried to give back the ring, only to have the give-back refused? Because, in that situation, I wouldn't want the ring anywhere around me, nor would I want to have to pay to store it. I personally would probably try to have it delivered once or twice, and then would sell it and donate the money to charity or use it to pay off any remaining non-refundable wedding deposits, but...
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:55 am
If your engagement has fallen apart, just RUN, and do not look back. And do NOT try to "fix" the situation. Any woman who "isn't sure" will be keeping you on insecure ground for the rest of our life -- including through your divorce "negotiations".
Get away from her. Don't look back.
Because behind her is a flock of lawyers, psychologists and judges who wish to take much more than your ring. And after they do that, they'll put a brass ring through your nose and treat you like a domesticated farm animal, which is what you'll be -- an owned animal kept alive to serve the economic needs of the owner -- her.
Don't worry about the ring. It's small money compared to the fate you just avoided.
Just run.
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:48 am
Agreed.. Take the ring and pawn it or whatever... Atleast you can get some money back for it.
May 30th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
I think the whole expensive engagement ring, expensive wedding, expensive honeymoon mentality is out of control. Newly weds should be thinking of their future, not focusing on spending their nest egg before they get married (I exclude the rich since they're on a different level than the rest of us).
Most people are ignorant of the fact that the diamond engagement ring "tradition" was started by a diamond company hoping to sell more product. As wikipedia says: "The establishment of the diamond engagement ring as a standard in Western culture is a result of one of the most successful advertising campaigns in history, by the world's leading diamond producer de Beers, in the 1940s." The diamond industry itself is controlled by 3 major companies, and you can guess that just like oil your probably paying more for the product than you should be.
For me there is a stigma attached to the diamond engagement ring. I have had too much exposure to women who wear them as status symbols, rather than a symbol of love and commitment. My husband and I feel the same way about them. We used the money we saved on a lavish wedding and diamond rings for a down payment on our house and we have no regrets.
The woman in this story chucked the expensive engagement ring out of spite, and I'm glad the court ruled against her. But the man would have been better off giving her *small* token of his love rather than a status symbol (I wonder how satisfied she would be without the big rock). In my opinion, he made a lucky escape from this marriage, but I still wonder if he's doomed to repeat his mistake with the next woman.