What Jewellery to Buy Your Wife: A Piece She Will Wear, Not File Away
Under Roman law a husband's gift to his wife did not count. The jurist Ulpian wrote that "our ancestors prohibited gifts between husband and wife", and the gifted thing stayed, legally, with the man who gave it. The ban is long gone. The real problem survived it: husbands buy what they like, and the box goes in a drawer.
The quick answer: what jewellery to buy your wife
You have an advantage nobody else buying for her has. Her best friend sees her on Saturdays, her mother at Christmas, her colleagues across a desk. You see her every morning. You know which earrings go in before work, which chain she never takes off, even in the shower, and which ring lives on the edge of the sink because it gets in the way of the washing up. A gift for a wife is built on that knowledge, and the shop window and the "15 ideas" list come a long way second.
So the short version runs like this. Look at the metal she wears most and stay in it. Look at what is already taken: if the same pendant has sat on her neck for years, buy earrings; if her ears are pierced but she rotates the same two pairs, buy a pendant. Give a ring only when you know the size and you know which finger it will share with her wedding ring. And if she has ever said out loud what she wants, buy exactly that. Research on gift giving, which we come to below, says a requested present is valued more than a surprise.
Wear the symbol, don't just read about it. These are in stock:
If you have one evening to decide
Choose earrings with a small drop or a pendant on a mid-length chain, in her metal, with nothing written on the front, and add a card that says why you chose that piece. No size needed, a chain of the right length is hard to get wrong, and she can wear it the same night. From our own catalogue, a woman who wears silver and likes a touch of colour would suit the Gota necklace in sterling silver: a blue petal of irregular shape and a matt silver disc hanging from a fine chain. If her neck already belongs to a favourite chain, the Arce earrings from the same line put a textured silver bar and a small blue flower at her ears instead.
Start with her jewellery box, not the shop window
A present for your wife is not a getting-to-know-you gesture and it is not a box ticked for a date. It lives in your house. You will find out whether she wears it, and that changes the rules.
What she wears every single day
A friend has to guess. A husband can check. Spend a week before you buy just watching: what goes on in the morning, what comes off at night, what stays in the dish. The pieces she wears constantly tell you more about metal, scale and shape than any question you could ask. If every pair of earrings she owns is small and sits flat on the lobe, a big chandelier drop will look wonderful in the shop photograph and spend the rest of its life in its box. If she changes her jewellery to match her clothes every day, you have more room to be bold: she is used to choosing, and a new piece will find its outfit.
Look at what she wears on the weekend as well as on workdays. If she keeps a quieter set for the office and a louder one for dinner out, a husband who has only noticed one of them buys for half a wardrobe. The second set tells you how far she is happy to go when nobody is grading her.
The broken pieces and the single earrings
Then look where the casualties are kept. An earring whose partner went down a drain, a chain with a snapped link, a ring that no longer fits: these are ready-made briefs. She wore that piece until it broke, which means she liked it, and a replacement in the same shape reads as attention rather than as a random purchase. It also tells you her taste in a form she chose for herself, with no shop assistant in the room.
The orphans are useful in a second way. A single earring left in a dish is a measurement. You can see the length of the drop she finds comfortable, the type of fitting she manages with one hand, and whether she goes for gold-coloured or white metal when she buys for herself. Take a photo of it on your phone before you shop.
Ask, drop a hint, or keep it a surprise?
In 2011 the psychologists Francesca Gino and Francis Flynn published five studies on gift giving in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Recipients appreciated gifts they had asked for more than gifts the giver chose on his own. Givers predicted the opposite: they believed an unrequested present would come across as more thoughtful, and they were wrong.
For a husband that is good news. Asking her, or remembering the thing she pointed at in a window three weeks ago, is nothing to be embarrassed about. A surprise makes sense when you are sure of her taste and you know the size. In every other case the honest move is to give what she named and make the surprise the delivery: the place, the moment, the card. She gets the piece she wanted, and you still get the look on her face.
Give your wife her metal, not yours. A gold piece for a woman whose whole jewellery box is silver is a present to yourself, and I will not argue the point.
How to wear jewellery from your husband
These are the questions that come up once the present has been chosen: how she wears it so it does not fight with everything she already owns.
She already wears her own chain every day. Does it have to come off for the new pendant? No. I recommend the new pendant on a chain one step longer than hers: if hers sits at the base of the throat, the present goes on the collarbones. Two lengths on one neck read as a deliberate choice, not an accident.
The new earrings have a drop, and she has second piercings. In the second holes I advise the plainest stud you can find, no drop, in the same metal. The drop goes in the first piercing and stays the main event.
A new ring for the hand with her wedding ring. Which finger? If the present has a stone, I advise the middle finger next door rather than pressed against the wedding ring. A slim plain band can sit right beside it, but stone against stone on one finger looks like a shop tray.
She wears a watch every day and the present is a bracelet. I choose the other wrist when the watch is big, and the same wrist only when both are fine and in the same metal. A bracelet that knocks against a watch face all day gets taken off by the afternoon.
A brooch, and her coat has no lapel. I pick one of three places: the knot of a silk scarf, the neck of a jumper right under the throat, or the band of a hat. A brooch below the line of the chest disappears.
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Earrings, necklace, bracelet or ring: which piece to give
Each type of jewellery asks its own question. Does it need a size? Who will see it? Will she wear it on a Tuesday?
Earrings, the piece seen in every conversation
Earrings need no size, only two facts: whether her ears are pierced, and which fastening she gets on with. You can see both without asking. Butterfly backs on studs, lever backs, hinged hoops, hooks: whatever she wears without complaint is what she can manage half asleep at seven in the morning. Earrings sit beside her face, so they appear in every conversation and every photograph, which makes them one of the most rewarding presents you can choose.
If she wears the same small studs every day, go one step bolder with a short drop. That gives her a type of piece she does not own yet, rather than a fourth pair of studs. Weight matters more than men expect. Earrings that drag the lobe come out before lunch. If a weight is listed, compare it with the earrings she already wears all day without noticing them.
A pendant or necklace, the forgiving choice
A pendant works with almost any neckline if the chain is mid-length, and a plain pendant has a back that can take a few engraved words later. For a wife it has another quality: she can wear it at two heights, close to the throat with an open neckline and long over a jumper in winter. If she already has a chain she loves, a pendant on its own lets her hang it on that chain or alternate. Just remember that a pendant sold without a chain needs one of her own before it can be worn on the day.
Necklaces in the retailer lists are mostly diamonds and pearls on fixed lengths. A husband is better placed than a list: he knows whether she pulls necklaces off as soon as she gets home, which means the clasp annoys her, and whether she fiddles with a pendant when she is thinking, which means she likes it to sit where her hand can reach it.
A locket for the photographs only she sees
A locket is a pendant with a secret, and it suits a wife better than almost anyone else on a gift list. Inside go the children's faces, a photograph of the two of you, a few folded words. Outside there is only a smooth lid that tells strangers nothing, and what is inside is for her to show or keep.
Choose it for a woman who already wears pieces with some presence. A locket needs depth to hold anything, so it is thicker than a flat pendant and sits further from the skin. On a woman who wears only fine, flat jewellery it can feel heavy. On a woman who likes a pendant with presence it becomes the one she reaches for.
A bracelet, the one she sees herself
She sees a bracelet without a mirror, all day long: on the keyboard, on the steering wheel, round her coffee cup. That makes it a gift for herself rather than for an audience. A chain bracelet with a clasp forgives a mistake in wrist size. A rigid bangle does not, because it has to pass over her hand.
If she wears a watch, the bracelet either has to live happily beside it or go on the other wrist, so look at which wrist the watch is on before you buy. A charm bracelet suits a wife particularly well because it grows: one charm for each date that matters to you both, and years later her wrist carries your shared timeline. Start with a plain bracelet and a single charm. The rest is a ready answer for every future occasion.
A ring, and where it will live next to her wedding ring
A ring is the most personal piece on the list and the riskiest. She already wears a wedding ring and possibly an engagement ring, and a new one has to live alongside them. So decide first which finger it is for. A slim band worn right against the wedding ring should sit lower and quieter, without a stone that competes. A ring for the other hand can be bolder. One ring has its own tradition as a husband's gift in marriage: the eternity ring, a row of stones set round the band, given for an anniversary or a new baby. It has a guide of its own: the eternity ring.
Old Europe had a ring that spoke plainly about two people: the gimmel, from the Latin gemellus, "twin". It was made from two hoops that close together into one ring. The British Museum describes the custom: at the betrothal each partner kept one half, and at the wedding the halves were joined again. The idea still works for a present. A ring for your wife does best when it continues something she already wears instead of competing with it.
A ring needs an exact size, and there is a section on getting it quietly further down. Without the size, choose another piece this time and keep the ring for an occasion when you have it.
A brooch, for the wife who wears coats and blazers
The brooch has an undeserved reputation as something for older women. In practice it is for anyone who wears tailored jackets, coats with a lapel or silk scarves. No size, no fitting, and it is visible from across a room. If your wife dresses that way, a brooch can turn out to be the most unexpected and the most worn present you ever give her. If she lives in knitwear and T-shirts, a brooch has nowhere to go, and you should pick something else.
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Her metal, her stones, her skin
Gold feels like the safe answer and turns into the wrong one if she has worn silver for twenty years. Her jewellery box chooses the metal. Your job is to read it.
Silver, gold or gold plating: follow her box
A woman who wears silver gets silver. A woman who wears gold gets gold, or gold plating in the same warm tone. A woman who mixes metals can be given any of the ones she already wears. Sterling silver darkens with time: the tarnish is silver sulphide, caused by sulphur in the air, it wipes off with a cloth, and the metal underneath is unchanged. Tell her that when you give it, so that six months later the piece does not go back in its box as "ruined". Our article on sterling silver and what 925 means covers the marks and the care.
Gold plating gives a warm colour at a gentler price, but it is a layer. On a ring that rubs against everything all day it wears faster than on a pendant or earrings. That is no reason to avoid it, only a reason to choose plated pieces for the neck and ears rather than the fingers.
Birthstones and stones that spell a message
A stone in a present for your wife can speak a language only the two of you read: her birth month, the month you married, the months your children were born. Georgian England had a cleverer version. In the 1820s and 1830s acrostic rings were in fashion, where the first letters of the stones spelled a word. The best known spelled REGARD with a ruby, an emerald, a garnet, an amethyst, a second ruby and a diamond.
You can borrow the idea on a smaller scale: two or three stones whose initials spell her initials, or a word that belongs to your marriage. A jeweller will set them. The stones need not be rare, only in the right order, and you will be the only other person who knows what the row says.
Sensitive ears: what to check first
If cheap earrings turn her lobes red, nickel is a likely suspect: it is one of the metals the NHS lists as a trigger for allergic contact dermatitis. You know this better than anyone, because you have seen which earrings came out after an hour. For her, choose sterling silver, gold, or pieces whose material is described in full with no nickel declared. Our guide to nickel allergy and nickel-free jewellery goes further.
Look at the fittings as well as the body of the piece. A silver earring on a hook of unknown metal can cause the same reaction as a cheap one, and that is the part that goes through her ear.
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Finding her size and taste without giving the game away
A present for a wife is usually a surprise, and a husband has quiet access to every bit of data needed to stop the surprise turning into a miss.
Ring size: borrow the ring she already wears
The most reliable way to find your wife's ring size is to take a ring she wears on the right finger and measure its inside diameter with a ruler, or draw round the inside on paper. A British jeweller will want a letter and an American one a number, but the diameter in millimetres converts to either. If you land between two sizes, go up. Our ring size guide with UK, US and millimetre tables does the conversion.
Choose the ring from the hand the gift is going on. Leave her wedding ring alone: if you take it, you will be measuring it on the one evening she notices it has gone. Borrow a ring from the dish by the sink, measure it, put it back exactly where it was.
Necklace length: check where her favourite pendant sits
You can judge chain length over breakfast. A pendant at the base of her throat means a chain of about 40 to 42 cm, around 16 inches. A pendant on the collarbones means 45 to 50 cm, 18 to 20 inches. A pendant over a jumper means 60 cm and longer, 24 inches and up. If you are unsure, 45 to 50 cm works with an open neckline and with a shirt collar. Our necklace chain length guide has the full picture.
Recruit her sister or her best friend
If some detail of her taste is a mystery to you, ask the person she shops with. Her sister or her best friend knows what she tried on and put back. Asking is neither shameful nor a spoiler, as long as you swear them to silence. And if you are still unsure, there is a gift certificate: she keeps the choice and you keep the gesture. When you know almost nothing about her taste, read our article on a jewellery gift when you do not know her taste.
Give the helper a specific question rather than "what would she like?". "Gold or silver?", "Does she still wear the long chain?", "Would she wear something blue?" get you answers. An open question gets you a shrug or, worse, the helper's own taste.
Jewellery for your wife, occasion by occasion
The occasion changes what the piece has to do. Sometimes it matters that guests see it. Sometimes it should be for the two of you alone. Each occasion below has a fuller article of its own, so here are only the parts that change because the recipient is your wife.
Her birthday
Her birthday is her day, so the present is the most "her" of the year: her metal, her shapes, her usual scale. A piece she owns no example of works well. If all her earrings are studs, earrings with a small drop. If all her pendants hang short, one on a long chain to wear over knitwear. If she is turning fifty, the date has its own logic, set out in 50th birthday jewellery for her.
Your wedding anniversary
An anniversary belongs to both of you, so the present can talk about the two of you: your wedding date on the back, the stone of the month you married, the second half of a set you started a year ago. The traditional list of materials by year is laid out in wedding anniversary gifts by year, and the first year with its paper theme has its own guide: first wedding anniversary gift.
One rule here. The anniversary metal does not have to be the metal of the present. If she wears gold on your silver anniversary, a silver gift is a bow to the list, not to her.
Christmas
A present under the tree is opened in front of the whole family, and that shapes the choice: something cheerful to show off, with the most private present kept for an evening alone. In winter she lives in high necklines, jumpers and coats, so earrings and a long chain over knitwear do better than a short necklace hidden under a collar. Ordering deadlines and how December is celebrated in different countries are in our Christmas jewellery gift guide.
Valentine's Day
On the fourteenth of February the shop windows fill with hearts, and a heart picked from the window says more about the window than about her. For a wife the better Valentine is the opposite of the window display: a piece in her metal and her style that happens to be given on that date. If you want a symbol the two of you share, our guide to matching jewellery for couples covers the ones that stay subtle.
After the baby arrives
A present for your wife when a baby is born goes to the mother, not the baby, and that is the whole point. In the first weeks every visitor's attention goes to the newborn, and this one gift is about her. Napoleon's necklace of 1811, further down, shows the idea is old.
There is one practical consideration. A baby in arms grabs anything that dangles or shines, so for the first months earrings that sit close to the lobe, a short chain or a bracelet are easier to live with, and long drops can wait. A date or the baby's initial engraved on the back works well, because only she sees it. The baby gets no jewellery to wear: anything kept for a child as a keepsake stays with the parents until the child is grown.
Just because
A present with no occasion is the one that counts most, because nothing obliged you to give it. It can be small, and that is its strength. An expensive piece on an ordinary Wednesday prompts "what's happened?", while a small one says "I was thinking about you". Give it on a normal day with no dinner and no audience, in the morning before work, say. It works best when it continues her everyday life: a match for the earring that lost its partner, a new chain for her favourite pendant, a bracelet to go with her watch. The card matters more than the object: one sentence about where you saw it and why you thought of her.
After an argument
Jewellery after a row is dangerous because it can read as an attempt to buy forgiveness. The Romans banned gifts between spouses precisely so that affection could not become a way of extracting property, and a present after a quarrel carries the same risk of looking like a transaction. So the conversation comes first and the present after, never the other way round. If you do give something, make it about her and not about the argument: no "sorry" engraved on it, and no big stone that looks like compensation. A small piece she has wanted for a while says "I heard you" better than any apology in metal.
How husbands have given jewellery to their wives
Giving your wife jewellery looks like the simplest gesture in the world, but it has a long and occasionally strange history. It includes laws that forbade such gifts, laws that capped them, and presents that ended up in museums.
Rome: the gift the law refused to recognise
Justinian's Digest has a whole title on gifts between husband and wife, and it opens with a prohibition. Ulpian explains that the ancestors decided it, so that spouses would not strip each other of property in the name of love. A gifted object legally stayed with the giver, and no form of handover made the wife its owner. The exceptions were narrow: a gift in contemplation of death, a gift on divorce, a gift to free a slave.
In practice husbands gave and wives wore. But the law saw affection itself as the risk: a spouse in love might hand over more than was wise. It sounds absurd now, and yet one idea in it still holds: a gift to your wife should never be payment for something. A piece given "for putting up with me" reads exactly like the calculation it is.
The Oppian law and the women who took to the streets
Rome also tried the reverse. In 215 BC, at the height of the war with Hannibal, the Oppian law limited women to half an ounce of gold and banned multicoloured clothing. Twenty years later, in 195 BC, repeal came to a vote and Roman women came out into the streets to demand it. Livy, in book 34 of his history, gives Cato's speech against repeal and the speech of the tribune Lucius Valerius in favour. The law was repealed.
Gold went back into the jewellery boxes, and the story leaves a moral a husband can use. A wife's jewellery is her property and her choice, not a line in the household budget to be trimmed when the mood takes you.
The morning gift
The Germanic peoples had a custom they called the morning gift, Morgengabe in German. The morning after the wedding the husband gave his wife property, and it remained hers. Among the Lombards it grew so large that in 717 King Liutprand required the morning gift to be declared in writing before witnesses and capped it at a quarter of the husband's property. Husbands had been handing over so much that a ceiling became necessary.
One detail from this history is worth keeping: the gift belonged to the wife, not to the family. Jewellery you give your wife is hers. She can wear it, remodel it, pass it to a daughter. If you give a piece "to the family" and have already decided in your head who will inherit it, it has stopped being a present.
A fourteenth-century brooch that asks to stay by her heart
Medieval love tokens were small and talkative. A gold brooch in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, made in Saxony or southern Germany around 1340 to 1360, takes the form of the letter E. Its lid opens on a hinge, so the brooch works like a locket with a hidden space inside. On the lid a man aims arrows at his own heart, and the inscription inside asks the lady to let him always stay close to her heart.
The museum does not say whose letter it is, but the method is clear enough today. Six and a half centuries ago this brooch did what a few engraved words on the back of a pendant do now: it hid a message for a single reader. A letter or a monogram, yours or hers, makes jewellery personal, and that needs neither large stones nor a large piece.
Albert's orange blossom, one piece at a time
In November 1839, before the wedding, Prince Albert sent Queen Victoria a brooch from Wiesbaden: a sprig of orange blossom with gold leaves and porcelain flowers, designed by Albert himself. In December 1845 a second brooch and a pair of earrings joined it, and in February 1846, for their sixth wedding anniversary, a wreath for her hair. On the wreath sit four small green enamel oranges, one for each of their four eldest children. Victoria wore pieces from the set on their wedding anniversaries for the rest of her married life.
What a husband can take from this is the mechanism. Albert did not hand over a complete set. He built it over years, one piece at a time, each one continuing the last. If you have no idea for an anniversary, you already have a present she wears, and you can add its second half: earrings to go with the pendant, a pendant to go with the earrings.
Napoleon's necklace for a new mother
In 1811 Napoleon gave his second wife, Marie Louise, a diamond necklace to mark the birth of their son, the King of Rome. It was made in Paris by the jewellers Nitot et Fils. Today it is in the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington. It is a husband's gift for a birth in the most literal sense, and the important thing about it is the recipient: the mother, not the child.
The hen in the egg, Easter 1885
At Easter 1885 the Russian emperor Alexander III gave his wife, Maria Feodorovna, an egg from the Fabergé workshop. Outside it is smooth white enamel. Inside is a gold yolk, inside the yolk a gold hen, and inside the hen there were once a miniature diamond crown and a ruby pendant, both now lost. After that Easter the order became permanent: a new egg every year, with a surprise inside.
The lesson here is the method, not the price. The present opened in stages, and every stage was a small pleasure of its own. A modest piece can be wrapped the same way: a box inside a box, a note under a false bottom, a pendant that opens.
Sweetheart brooches of the First World War
During the First World War British soldiers leaving for the front gave their wives and sweethearts miniature versions of their regimental badges made as brooches. They were called sweetheart brooches. Some were gold or silver set with stones, others stamped out in cheap metal in the factories of Birmingham and London. The brooch said more about the husband than about the wife: where he served, who he was. She wore it while he was away.
A present carrying your badge, your emblem or your initial can be very strong when you are apart: a long posting abroad, months on a rig or a ship, military service. In ordinary life it works less well than a piece about her.
Mizpah: a verse for when you are apart
The late Victorian and Edwardian years had another jewel for separation. Brooches carried the single word MIZPAH, and some spelled out the verse it comes from, Genesis 31:49: "The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another." A brooch of this kind in the Collections WA database, dated about 1885 to 1905, is described as given between romantic partners, between family members, and between departing servicemen and their sweethearts during long separations or war.
For a modern husband the Mizpah idea is a good one to borrow when work keeps you apart. The point was never the stone. It was a sentence both people knew by heart, so that the brooch said the same thing on each side of the distance.
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Wedding jewellery a husband gives, around the world
Many traditions have a piece of wedding jewellery that a husband gives or puts on his wife, and in each of them you can see that the gift was treated as part of the marriage itself.
Tamil Nadu: the thali tied on the wedding day
In South India a wedding necklace called the thali is tied around the bride's neck during the ceremony. The Metropolitan Museum describes a thali of the Chettiar merchant community of Tamil Nadu from the late nineteenth century, gold strung on black thread. It was provided by the groom's family, presented at the climax of the wedding when three knots are tied, and from then on became part of the wife's property. The Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art, describing a similar necklace, gives a different account of where it comes from: the bride's parents provide it as part of her dowry, and the groom ties it around her neck during the ceremony. The two museums disagree about who pays for it. They agree that the husband's hands put it on.
The thali shows a husband's part in the gift as a beginning rather than a reward. It goes on during the wedding itself and stays with her for life. That is a useful frame for any present to a wife: the best ones are worn into the years, not admired on the night and retired.
Which hand her wedding ring is on
In Britain, as in France and Italy, the wedding ring goes on the left hand. In the Orthodox tradition it goes on the right. For a husband choosing a ring this is a practical matter. A new ring on the same hand as her wedding ring will sit beside it and has to get on with it, while a ring for the other hand is free of that neighbour.
If you married abroad, or her family follows a different custom, look before you assume. Check which hand her wedding ring is actually on before you decide what shape the present will be. A wide band with a stone that suits her free hand can look crowded next to an engagement ring.
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Engraving: what to have written for your wife
Engraving turns a bought piece into a piece for her. The medieval letter brooch hid its declaration under a lid, and the same principle works today: the words go on the back, not the front. Engraving is done by a jeweller after you have the piece, and our jewellery engraving guide covers the technical limits.
Words that work
Short and yours: a date that means something to the two of you, initials, one word from your private language, a nickname nobody else would understand. Your wedding date in numbers reads like a code between you, and so do the coordinates of the place you met. The back of a pendant takes one line. The inside of a ring takes even less, so count characters before you fall in love with a sentence.
Words to avoid, and when to engrave
Long quotations do not fit and shrink to illegibility. A joke that is funny today will look like a greetings card glued to her neck in a year. A name on the front makes a piece look like a child's.
The timing matters most. Engrave after the piece has been tried and fits, because an engraved item usually cannot be exchanged. So the order is: the present, then a week in which you see whether she wears it, then the jeweller. The words can even be a second present on the next occasion, and that is the nicer version: the piece gets a second life.
Mistakes husbands make with jewellery
The list of mistakes is shorter than the list of ideas, and more useful.
Buying for your own taste
The main trap: a husband buys what he would like to see on her rather than what she wears. Chunky gold on a woman who loves fine silver, or strict classics on a woman who loves bold artisan pieces. The test is simple. Put the present, in your mind, next to her three favourite pieces. If it looks as if it came from someone else's jewellery box, it is a present for you.
The "grown-up" piece she did not ask for
A gift chosen on the logic of "it's time she wore something serious" reads as a comment on her age. Pearls "like her mother's", a heavy ring "for status": these are gifts to her age, not to her. Choose for her style as it is today.
Jewellery with a hint in it
A dumbbell pendant, a charm engraved with something about patience, a bracelet that counts steps: she will read the reproach faster than you think. A present for your wife is not a lesson.
Repeating last year
A third pair of studs, a second fine chain, another ring of exactly the same kind. If she wears last year's present every day, that is success, and it does not need duplicating. Add its second half or a new type of piece.
Giving it: the moment, the box, the card
With a present for your wife the delivery counts for more than with any other gift. She will remember how it happened.
Alone or in front of everyone
An anniversary present and a just-because present are best given when you are alone: they are a conversation between two people. A birthday present can be given in the morning, before the party, so that she can wear it in front of the guests. At Christmas and in front of family, give what is fun to show everyone and keep the most personal piece for the evening. Whatever the occasion, do not hand it over on the way out of the door. Pick a minute when her hands are free and she has time to open the box properly.
The box and the card
The box becomes the piece's home, so she will keep it, and it should open in one movement. The card does not describe the jewellery. It explains the choice: why this stone, this colour, this shape. One sentence about where you saw it and why you thought of her beats a long greeting. If there is an engraving, the card does not repeat it. And the price tag always comes off, while the receipt goes somewhere it can be found if an exchange is needed.
A last point on the card: write it by hand, even if your handwriting is terrible. She will keep it in the box with the piece, and a printed card from the shop is the one part of the present that says nothing about you.
What Zevira has for a wife
Three things in our catalogue work as a present for a wife.
Sterling silver with a blue accent
The Acosta en Plata line comes from Rodrigo Acosta's workshop in Valencia and is built from simple sterling silver forms with a blue accent. The Gota necklace is a blue petal of irregular shape and a matt silver disc on a fine chain: a present for a wife who wears silver and likes colour. The Arce earrings, a textured silver bar with a blue flower, suit a woman whose neck already belongs to a favourite chain. Chances are she owns nothing in this shape yet.
The Love lock pendant
The Love lock pendant in silver tone is stainless steel with a silver-tone finish, 14 by 23.8 mm, with the word love on the front. It is a present that needs no card: a padlock and a word explain themselves. There is a gold-tone version for a wife who wears warm metal. It is a pendant on its own, without a chain, so it goes on a chain of hers chosen to her length.
A gift certificate with a hint
Our gift certificate is electronic and valid for 24 months. It looks like a cop-out when it is forwarded as a message. It becomes a present when you print it, put it in a box and add a hint in your own words: "earrings for your blue dress" or "a pendant for your chain". She makes the choice, you set the direction.
Choose a present for your wife
Sterling silver with a blue accent, gold-tone pendants and earrings, the Love lock pendant and an electronic gift certificate.
Send a friend a discount code, they save on their first order.
Facts that surprise
The Oppian law did not stop at gold. Roman women were also barred from riding in carriages in the city or within a mile of it, except to public religious festivals.
The box that held Albert's first orange blossom brooch carries the inscription "Sent to me by dear Albert from Wiesbaden, Novr. 1839."
The earliest known written use of the phrase vena amoris, the "vein of love" said to run from the ring finger to the heart, is in a treatise on marriage by the English church lawyer Henry Swinburne, published after his death in 1686. Long before him, the Roman writer Aulus Gellius had passed on an Egyptian version about a fine nerve instead of a vein.
The first Fabergé Easter egg of 1885 was made by the workmaster Erik Kollin, and the yearly series of imperial eggs went on until the revolution.
Sweetheart brooches of the First World War did not go only to wives and sweethearts. Soldiers also gave them to mothers, sisters and children.
"Gimmel" comes through the Latin gemellus, "twin", and the constellation Gemini shares the root.
In the same Gino and Flynn research, givers assumed money would be appreciated less than a requested gift. Recipients said the opposite.
Buying it as a gift? Each one arrives ready to give.
A branded Zevira box and a little card come with every order.
Frequently asked questions
What jewellery should I buy my wife? Something that continues what she already wears and adds a type of piece she lacks: drop earrings for a woman who only wears studs, a pendant on a long chain for a woman whose pendants all hang short. In her metal, and without a size unless you know it for certain.
Should I buy my wife gold or silver? Whichever she wears. If silver, give sterling silver. If gold, give gold or gold plating in the same tone. If she mixes metals, any of the ones she already wears will do.
How do I find out my wife's ring size without her knowing? Borrow a ring she wears on the finger you are buying for and measure the inside diameter with a ruler, or draw round the inside on paper. Convert the millimetres to a UK letter or a US number with a size chart, and if you fall between two sizes, go up.
Can I buy my wife a ring that isn't an engagement or wedding ring? Yes, if you know the size and you know which finger it will live on. A ring with a stone does best on the next finger or on the other hand. A slim plain band can sit right beside her wedding ring.
What jewellery do you give your wife after having a baby? A piece for her: earrings that sit close to the lobe, a short chain with a pendant, or a bracelet with the date engraved on the back. Long drops can wait a few months. The baby gets no jewellery to wear.
What do you buy a wife who has everything? A type of piece she does not have: a brooch for a woman who owns only earrings and pendants, a bracelet for a woman who wears only rings. Or the second half of a favourite piece, or a gift certificate with a hint written in the card.
What should I engrave for my wife? Short and only yours: a date, initials, one word or a nickname, the coordinates of where you met. On the back rather than the front, and only once the piece has been tried and fits.
What necklace length should I buy my wife? Look at where her favourite pendant sits. If you are unsure, 45 to 50 cm, 18 to 20 inches, lands on the collarbones and works with an open neckline and with a shirt collar.
Conclusion
Roman law distrusted a husband's gifts, a Lombard king capped them at a quarter of the husband's property, and Prince Albert spent years building Victoria a set one piece at a time. The conclusions are simple. A present to your wife belongs to her. It works when it continues her taste, not yours. And a husband has something no other giver has: he sees her jewellery box every day. If you are still stuck, start with our jewellery gift guide by occasion, and if you want a present with some weight to it, see how to choose one jewellery gift that carries the occasion.
Wear the symbol, don't just read about it. These are in stock:
About Zevira
Zevira builds its jewellery around symbols and their histories: protective, seasonal, and the ones carried on a journey. We explain where a sign came from before offering a piece that carries it, because a present with a meaning behind it outlives a present with a pretty picture on it.
