Jewelry has a long and quite interesting history in many of the civilizations in history, but not all of them. Body jewelry had several 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 manner of carrying it around.
If a trader went on a purchasing trip, he could either trust his family to take care of his wealth or carry 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 handy manner of transferring money and still is in some countries in the guise of a dowry. Many 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 functions. In the East many women wear their dowry jewelry to show how much their husbands valued them when they got married.
Most cultures wear body jewelry on their clothing or hair, except, obviously, the ring. Rings are worn on fingers, toes, biceps (torc) and even about the neck as with the Karen in Burma and Thailand. Other forms or body jewelry are necklaces, bracelets and body piercings.
Body piercings made something of a renaissance in the West with the punks in the Seventies, although body piercings in the form or earrings have always been fashionable with Western women. Nose piercings are quite common in the West 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 frequently fairly plain in that they are frequently a band of inert precious metal like silver or gold without any valuable stones.
However, women and men have used ordinary, everyday things like pins and safety pins manufactured of stainless steel. This is meant to demonstrate an irreverence for tradition and wealth. Plastic has been used for the same reason. Of course, both plastic and stainless steel are inert so will not cause blood poisoning.
This makes it simpler for young, impoverished people to adorn themselves, which is the contemporary reason for wearing jewelry in the modern world. Nowadays fewer people are able to tell the difference between real jewelry and cheaper imitations. Even quite well-off women will wear cheap costume jewelry for daily use.
Another use of body jewelry is to denote membership of a gang or club. Freemasons frequently wear a ring or a tie pin denoting a Masonic symbol. These articles of gang or club jewelry might be ostentatious or difficult for the inexperienced person to differentiate from other jewelry.
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a variety of topics, and is now involved with Good Diamond Quality. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Jewellry and Watches.