Concept of wedding rings for men taking a plunge

When word arrived that Prince William wouldn't be wearing a wedding ring to commemorate his nuptials, there was a hue and cry across the land. Not across England, but in its former colony. British men often eschew wedding bands, but American guys have been ring bearers only for about 70 years. And once married, American men and women often stop wearing wedding rings, sometimes as blithely (and duplicitously) as changing their Facebook relationship status and sometimes for purely practical reasons. In the millennia-old annals of marriage, wedding rings have been a ladies-only proposition. "It's very traditional to have a single wedding ring gift, not a double exchange," said the Rev. Spenser Simrill of St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Minneapolis. "Historically, the woman was the only one who received a wedding ring. Today, a male wedding ring is the standard, but it can be an elective.