When you first look at a wedding ring, what you see is often a band of metal around a finger. But your wedding ring carries an enormous amount of symbolism, sitting on your finger as it does as a token of your love, commitment, and marriage.

Let us peel back some of the surface explanations for why that ring you’re wearing is so meaningful.

A Never-Ending Circle of Love

Probably one of the main reasons your wedding ring is so special is because it represents an endless love. The shape of the ring is a circle. It is a very special shape because a circle has no beginning and no end – it just keeps going round and round in a continuing loop, so like endless love!

When you and your partner exchanged rings at your wedding, you made a promise to still love each other 10, 20, 50 or 60 years later. You vowed to remain committed to each other, through thick and thin, for the rest of your lives.

You never take off your wedding ring. Whenever you look down at it or spin it around your finger, you see it’s a token of your enduring marriage vows, and that great promise strengthens or renews the very bond of love.

A Subtle Sign You're Taken

Remember that your wedding ring helps you to display your mating status, too. The idea here is that in public it functions symbolically like an at-a-glance signal that you are spoken for. In the presence of others, your ring communicates (without you having to say a word) that you are in a committed, co‑operatively breeding relationship.

For many married couples, a wedding band is essential – it signals the world that your heart is not for sale, as it were, but already claimed. The ring draws boundaries. It discourages unwanted enquiries and falsely suggests to anyone who asks that you are probably not interested in them.

And so: your ring is, for you, a very special item of costume, plainly showing the degree of your devotion and love.

A Tradition with Deep Roots

If you think about it, the wedding ring tradition is quite something. It’s been going on for about 3,000 years. These ancient people started a tradition that has stuck to this very day. That really speaks volumes about how special and deep-rooted the institution of marriage is, it seems to me.

Some of the earliest wedding rings came from braided reeds in ancient Egypt. Soon after, other cultures would follow their lead, many of whom believed that the fourth finger of the left hand had a special vein that ran directly to the heart, known as the vena amoris. As a result, wedding rings were worn on said finger.

It is very moving to think that, when you exchange rings, you are contributing to this ancient ceremony as it has been observed by so many hundreds of thousands of couples before you, and will be performed by more over the centuries to come.

Chosen with Great Intention

Another reason your wedding ring is special is the part your partner played in choosing it. You selected your ring together; you chose each other’s ring, you finding one conscious of the other.

Perhaps you went ring shopping at an antique dealer together or designed your own matching bands. Either way, they were picked with care and significance. You wanted a symbol that reflected your relationship.

If you look at the delicacy of the workmanship of your ring, you look away from the intention that imbued it with meaning – your love – and towards the handiwork instead.

Passed Down Through Generations

At times, wedding rings are meaningful because they can be passed down through generations: because they’re family heirlooms. I don’t come from a family where there are things that get handed down, but if you do, a ring might help to link you to the marriages that preceded yours.

Imagine you wear your grandma’s wedding ring as she wore it in the 1950s. Looking at this ring on your hand, you feel connected with your grandma’s marriage and with your grandparents’ love for each other. The ring bonds you across time.

Present Through Life's Milestones

You have to keep your wedding ring with you during the period when you and your partner make it through the big life experiences – birth, home ownership, retirement.

An uncomplicated marriage will still find happy milestone moments to check how beautifully your ring catches the light and remember how thankful you are to be married, while a more trying time filled with illness and job transitions will admit that you’ll need your ring to offer moral support and patience.

Rain or shine, through thick or thin, come what may, that ring steadies you. In whatever direction life moves, the marriage that it marks holds the compass that helps you through your travels.

Reigniting Your Vows

You might even have some difficult periods in your marriage, when nothing is quite running as it should be. If and when that happens, look at your wedding ring: it could bring back some of the hope of the day when you first said, ‘I do’.

That unbroken circle reminds you of the vows you made, and inspires you to open up, give in and recapture the feeling when it all first began. Your ring will inspire you to rescue your marriage.

Keeping Your Partner Top of Mind

In the confusion of day-to-day living, you may lose track of your partner for a moment. But the sight of your wedding ring serves to remind you of your partner right away.

It’s also the ring that keeps you close even when you’re geographically unable to because of business obligations or travel. It reminds you of all the shared history that builds intimacy and makes distance feel less painful.

Like a string of souls that’s invisible, your ring conjoins two spirits tight and makes you feel as if her spirit’s always near, when you’re far away.