Many women believed that diamonds were essential for courtship.
For a long time after their discovery, diamonds had been ornaments for royalty and nobility to flaunt their wealth and status.
But after diamond mines were discovered in South Africa in the late nineteenth century, these once-rare gems became no rarer than silver. With the diamond mines in Russia as well, diamonds flooded the market, and their value would be greatly diminished.
Later, a British businessman came up with an idea: tightly bind love and diamonds together. After all, diamonds were the hardest substance known to mankind. This transparent stone, which at first glance looked little different from crystal, seemed capable of bearing witness to the most steadfast and eternal love.
The businessman spent enormous sums on advertising and began building this so-called diamond culture. In almost every wedding photograph, the bride smiled blissfully while the diamond ring on her hand dazzled the viewers.
A diamond is forever.
Sixty percent of the women on this beautiful blue planet knew that slogan.
For the wealthy, this was quite the bargain. After all, the threshold for giving a diamond was much lower than giving one's life.
The world seemed to have become just as Socrates had said in his drunken ramblings: the god of love favored handsome gods of wealth.
In the film Titanic, there was a blue diamond called the Heart of the Ocean. It had been modeled after the blue diamond Louis XIV bought from India.
When the diamond was first unearthed, it was a rough triangle, hardly fit to become the eye of a goddess. Louis XIV had the court jeweler cut it and set it upon a golden base, making it into an ornament the king wore at ceremonies. At the time, it was called the French Blue.
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