Who Gets to Keep the Ring After a Broken Engagement?

Our friend Robin Epstein and her sister Amy Epstein Feldman just wrote a hilarious (not to mention helpful) book called So Sue Me, Jackass! Avoiding Legal Pitfalls That Can Come Back to Bite You at Work, at Home, and at Play. Over the past few weeks, we’ve published excerpts answering questions like “Can you keep an ex from posting your nudie pics?” and If you get married while drunk, does it count? For this last installment, we’ll learn who gets to keep the ring.

Q: When my ex-fiancé broke our engagement, Señor Shitface told me he’d be needing his grandmother’s ring back. I told him the only way he’d see that ring again was when my fist connected with his nose. He claims the engagement ring is his. I say it’s mine. Who’s right . . . and who gets to keep the rock?

A: While common courtesy dictates that the ring should remain with the dumpee, the law in most jurisdictions dictates that if a ring is given in contemplation of marriage, the woman doesn’t take title to the ring until the marriage takes place. That means if the marriage doesn’t take place, the ring goes back to the giver. If the ring was not given in anticipation of marriage, however, but as a gift—or in one actual case to reimburse the woman for cash and labor she’d invested in her fiancé’s property—the ring is hers to keep. Of course, when you get a proposal like, “I can’t pay you for gardening, but here’s a diamond ring,” one more question should be going through your mind: “Do I really want to marry this putz?”

Previous Excerpts:

So Sue Me, Jackass! is on sale everywhere now. For more information — or to ask them your own embarrassing question — check out SoSueMeJackass.com. We’ll be posting more excerpts here in the coming weeks.