Puh-leeeeze!! However, you do have a point - the custom of the expensive wedding ring and expensive automobile is rooted in the Middle Eastern custom of providing the wife with wearable cash, so that after the man hard-heartedly divorces her and throws her out, she's not completely destitute... Still too much inequity in modern Western civilization - women still only earn 55-60 cents to a dollar of mens' wages...
My wedding ring (first marriage to JW) was bought in a second-hand store (ooooh! Demons!) for $25. My wedding ring (second marriage) was $50 in a pawn/jewelry shop - simple band that I wore until I broke it while mowing the lawn... The fact that we were both so frugal allowed us to buy a condo within a few years of our marriage, even tho we started out with nothing.
When we finally did come into a little money (second marriage) we used it to pay off the house - not buy a chunk of crystallized carbon....
Expensive, late-model sedan - Hah! I threw a hissy fit when he made me get rid of my 17-year-old Honda Accord LXi hatchback for a new car - HATED the new car and we got rid of it, but I didn't get my little baby Honda back.... I still miss that car... [SnIFFFF!]
Zid