“When my wife opened the box and took out the ear rings, I noticed a flaw in one of the stud diamonds that I hadn’t seen here in the store yesterday,” the man said earnestly to the attentive sales woman, Jill. “Can you take a look?”
“Certainly,” said Jill. “As you know, diamonds are graded according to several factors. Clarity is one of them, which is a rating of how many flaws, or inclusions, the diamond contains. Over the millennia that it takes for heat and pressure to form the diamond, impurities are captured in the process of crystal growth. The diamond studs you purchased yesterday were graded I-3, indicating a higher flaw content than our most pure diamonds. The grading is, of course, reflected in the price.”
The man looked through the loop and saw indeed that there were inclusions which were not damage to the diamond, but rather imperfections in the crystalline structure. He thought for a moment and asked, “May I look at other ear rings with better clarity and perhaps exchange these?”
“Why certainly,” Jill replied. Have you noticed that the word “certainly” is used a lot in stores where really expensive products are sold? Jill brought out a tray of diamond stud ear rings. The man’s eyes went directly to the largest set of stones, shining brilliantly in the summer sunlight that streamed through the open store doorway. He brought them up to the loop and peered deep into the soul of the crystals.
“I can barely tell that there are any flaws in these”, he said. “I imagine they are more expensive.”
Jill nodded and simply showed him the price tag. $8,000. About four times what he had paid for the ear rings he had purchased the day before. Now the man was calculating that most sensitive equation. What price conveys the love and appreciation he feels for his wife on the occasion of their fifth anniversary? It was his idea to bring the studs back for examination and possibly exchange, because he wouldn’t have felt right if his wife wore the smaller, less-perfect diamonds, knowing that he could see a significant flaw in one of the stones from the distance of a kiss on her neck.
He looked again at the display and saw another pair, a bit smaller than the highest priced set, but very clear. He looked at them through the loop and was pleased to have to study them very closely with strong magnification to find the few tiny inclusions. They were larger than yesterday’s pick. Jill showed him the tag. $4,000. He quickly calculated the price in more fundamental terms. I guessed that he would have to work an extra month’s worth of time in his job to pay for them. Assuming he worked full time, that would be 176 hours of his life devoted to showing his wife how much he cared about her. You could see the man going through the assessment mentally. He was thinking, “Is a month enough?”, not “Is a month too much?”
As I secretly watched and listened, pretending to be examining watches, I realized that the reality of his sacrifice was the gift to his beloved wife. The diamonds were a vehicle within which to carry the gift of his life to her, because he was actually giving her a portion of the time he has left on the planet. It struck me then that one can view the diamond industry as an economy based on the intrinsic value of time. It is ironic that the sentiments attached to the gifting of these precious stones are far from the mine owners and traders who rely upon thousands of workers spending the hours of their lives in poverty and hardship.
I left the store in conflict. I admired the man’s intentions and the care with which he chose the symbolic representation of his love for his wife. I knew, however, that many people lived lives of subsistence in order for his gift to be possible. Couldn’t he have just given his lovely bride a coupon that read, “I give you 176 hours of my life, to be spent in any way you wish”? But if everyone did that, would thousands of Africans be out of work, absent even their meager wages? On my bike ride home, I concluded that a man’s gift of diamonds to his love is not condoning the exploitation of mine laborers living in squalor. His intentions are not flawed by the base motivations of mine owners and traders who make profit disproportionately to those who labor on their behalf. His love is independent and pure.
But imagine the preciousness these gems would represent if the miners were treated with the affection that accompanied their presentation to lovers?