Why Do We Need Jewelry? a Psycho-anthropological Perspective

naturally-occurring diamond?

Perhaps it is the need for something Other, something higher, the knowledge that the aesthetically pleasing can be created independently of human governance and interference. Anthropologists and psychologists have long cited the role of jewelry in the dating-and-mating world.

Absented of anything like the natural splendor of a peacock, a bird whose feathers are jewels themselves, the need for sparkly, colorful, splendid stones and metals is a must for humans.

There is a painfully funny scene in the Christmas special of Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant’s British award winning comedy The Office, where Gervais’ David Brent is blind-dating a lady whom is wearing an elegant, bosom-bee-lining pendant. Only a little while into the date Brent offers the following calamitous Freudian insight: ‘Ah, you are wearing that necklace to draw attention to your breasts’.

Earrings draw attention to the erogenous ear-lobes, belly bars to the naval, pedants to the bosom. Contrarily, the wedding band can – and should – serve as a barrier to the amorous stranger, a warning that the wearer is already ‘spoken for’.

Thus, jewelry persuasively says and implies things that would be impolite or crass to communicate with words. So far the needs for jewelry fit, justifiably, into Maslow’s pyramid. But does the need for jewelry ever transcend into the metaphysical, the conceptual?

Take, again, the humble wedding band. A very simple metal band that symbolizes the complex concept that two people are united and blessed by the Holy Spirit. That these two people are committed to this union for eternity and irrespective of conditions

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