Body Jewelry Through The Ages
Posted by Owen Jones in Uncategorized, tags: family, gifts, gold, happiness, jewelry, love, marriage, other, product reviews, romance, society, Uncategorized, unclassified, weddingsJewelry has a long and quite interesting history in many of the civilizations in history, but not all of them. Body jewelry had a number of functions. Banks did not exist in the West until the Fourteen Century, so people had to take care of their own money. Jewelry was the most convenient way of carrying it around.
If a merchant went on a buying trip, he could either trust his family to take care of his wealth or take it with him. In any case, he would have to take something of value to trade with.
There were no cheques or credit cards, however, a single gold pendant could be worth a month’s wages or much more if it were encrusted with valuable stones. A gold ring or a brooch might be of less value for lesser purchases. There were coins of different values, but they were cumbersome.
Jewelry has always been a convenient way of transferring money and still is in some countries in the guise of a dowry. Numerous women still prefer to hold their personal wealth in the form of body jewelry.
If wealth is stored in body jewelry, it can also be used to display one’s wealth and status at special dos. In the East many women wear their dowry jewelry to demonstrate how much their husbands valued them before they got married.
Most cultures use body jewelry on their clothing or hair, except, naturally, the ring. Rings are worn on fingers, toes, biceps (torc) and even around the neck as with the Karen in Burma and Thailand. Other types or body jewelry are necklaces, bracelets and body piercings.
Body piercings saw something of a come-back in the West with the punks in the Seventies, although body piercings in the form or earrings have always been well-liked with Western women. Nose piercings are quite common in the Developed World now, but have always been fashionable with Indian women.
The same is true of navel piercings, which young women like nowadays. Navel and ear piercings are often fairly plain in that they are often a band of inert precious metal like silver or gold without any precious stones.
However, women and men have used ordinary, everyday things like pins and safety pins made of stainless steel. This is meant to show an irreverence for tradition and wealth. Plastic has been used for the same purpose. Naturally, both plastic and stainless steel are inert so will not cause septcaemia.
This makes it easier for young, impecunious people to adorn themselves, which is the contemporary reason for wearing jewelry in the modern world. Nowadays not so many people can tell the difference between real jewelry and cheaper imitations. Even fairly well-off women will wear cheap costume jewelry for daily use.
A different use of body jewelry is to indicate membership of a gang or club. Freemasons frequently wear a ring or a tie pin with a Masonic symbol. These articles of gang or club jewelry may be ostentatious or hard for the inexperienced person to detect from other jewelry.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a variety of topics, and is now concerned with Good Diamond Quality. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Jewellry and Watches.
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