译者按：“钻石恒久远，一颗永流传”，这样的广告语可能要过时了。《经济学人》2月25日刊上的这篇文章将告诉你钻石作为婚姻象征的由来、为什么钻石越便宜越没人买以及未来钻石替代品脑洞大开的猜想。联想起前段时间刚看的新闻说全球珠宝业正在积极朝数字化方向变革。或许不远的将来，男士掏出的求婚信物上显示的就是自己的微信支付密码或者支付宝芝麻信用评分了呢！

现在花两个月工资买的钻戒可能很快就一文不值了

Diamonds and marriage
钻石与婚姻

A girl’s new best friend

女孩的新挚友

The diamond engagement ring may not have a future as a symbol of courtship. What could replace it?
钻石订婚戒指作为求爱的象征可能没有未来。什么可以替代它？

1. PEACOCKS strut; bowerbirds build lovenests; spiders gift-wrap flies in silk. Such courtship rituals play an important role in what Charles Darwin called sexual selection: when the female of a species bears most of the costs of reproduction, males use extravagant displays and gifts to demonstrate their “reproductive fitness” and females choose between them. For human males, shards of a crystalline form of carbon often feature. A diamond engagement ring signals a man’s taste, wealth and commitment, all to persuade a woman that he is a good bet.

gift-wrap: to wrap a present with gift wrap, especially in a shop
e.g. Would you like that gift-wrapped, sir?
feature: If someone or something features in something such as a show, exhibition, or magazine, they are an important part of it.
e.g. A study of language should feature in an English literature course.
e.g. Violence seems to feature heavily in all of his books.
a good bet: If you tell someone that something is a good bet, you are suggesting that it is the thing or course of action that they should choose.
e.g. Your best bet is to choose a guest house.

1）孔雀开屏；园丁鸟建筑爱巢；蜘蛛把苍蝇当作礼物包在网中。这种求爱仪式在查尔斯·达尔文所说的性选择中起着重要作用：当一个物种的雌性承受大部分的繁殖代价时，雄性使用奢侈的表现和礼物来展示他们的“繁殖适应性”，雌性在它们之中进行选择。对于人类男性来说，一小块晶体形式的碳经常是（仪式）很重要的一部分。钻石订婚戒指体现出男人的品味、财富和承诺，所有这些都在向一个女人证明他是一个好的选择。

2. This particular courtship gift was dreamed up by an ad agency for De Beers, the cartel that sold almost all of the world’s diamonds throughout the 20th century. In the 1930s it started to promote a link between diamonds and marriage. Diamonds’ unmatched hardness would symbolise love’s endurance and their “fire”, or brilliance, its passion. Two months’ salary, the firm suggested, was what the ring should cost—a good investment since, as the admen said, “A diamond is forever.”

dream up: If you dream up a plan or idea, you work it out or create it in your mind.
e.g. I dreamed up a plan to solve both problems at once.
promote: publicize (sth) in order to sell it
e.g. a publicity campaign to promote her new book

2）这个特别的求偶礼物是由De Beers的一家广告公司创造出来的，这个同业联盟几乎销售了20世纪世界上所有的钻石。在20世纪30年代，它开始宣传钻石和婚姻之间的联系。钻石无与伦比的硬度象征着爱的持久，而它们的“火彩”，或者说亮度，象征着爱的激情。该公司建议，戒指应该花费两个月的工资——这是一笔好的投资，因为广告商说，“钻石恒久远。”

3. Now, that promise is dimming. Though a growing Chinese middle class will probably prop up demand for a while, millennials in Western countries seem keener on memorable experiences than on bling. Diamonds’ image has been blemished by some being mined in war zones and sold to pay for the fighting. Meanwhile, laboratory-grown “synthetic” diamonds, long fit only for industrial use, are becoming good enough to compete with gems from out of the ground.

dimming：If your future, hopes, or emotions dim or if something dims them, they become less good or less strong.
e.g. Their economic prospects have dimmed.
e.g. Forty eight years of marriage have not dimmed the passion between Bill and Helen.
prop up : To prop up something means to support it or help it to survive.
e.g. Investments in the U.S. money market have propped up the American dollar.
e.g. On the Stock Exchange, aggressive buying propped the market up.
millennials: people reaching young adulthood around the year 2000
blemish: If something blemishes someone's character or reputation, it spoils it or makes it seem less good than it was in the past. = tarnish
e.g. The pianist's performance was blemished by several wrong notes

3）现在，这个承诺正在变得前途暗淡。虽然一个不断增长的中国中产阶级可能支撑需求一段时间，但西方国家的千禧一代似乎更加热衷于体验而非闪亮的首饰。钻石的形象已经被那些在战争地区被开采并卖出以支付战争费用的钻石所玷污。同时，实验室诞生的“合成”钻石，长期以来仅适于工业用途，正在变得足够好，能与来自地下的宝石竞争。

4. But the long-term threat to diamonds’ lustre is more surprising: that their price could plummet. In recent years regulators (and market forces) have undermined De Beers’s cartel by limiting the share of other producers’ stones that it can buy. Now responsible for just a third of global sales, the company can no longer manage supply by stockpiling gems when demand turns down. It is spending less on advertising, since it no longer gets the lion’s share of the benefits. But the very value of diamonds lies in being scarce and coveted—that is, costly. In the jargon, they are “Veblen goods”, named after a 19th-century economist: prestige-enhancing trinkets for which a higher price encourages buyers. With most products, lower prices increase demand; with diamonds, they could kill it.

the lion's share (of sth): the largest part of something
e.g. The firm has captured the lion's share of the UK market.
coveted: greatly desired

4）但对钻石光彩的长期威胁更令人惊讶：他们的价格可能爆跌。近年来，监管机构（和市场力量）通过限制其可以购买的其他生产商的石头的份额，暗中破坏了De Beers的同业联盟。现在只负责全球销售的三分之一，当需求下降时，该公司不再能通过囤积宝石来操纵供应。它在广告上的花费越来越少，因为它不再从中获得最大的好处。但钻石的价值在于稀缺和令人垂涎，即昂贵。在术语中，他们是“维布伦商品”，以一个19世纪的经济学家的名字命名：即声誉增强型的饰品，更高的价格反而会鼓励买家购买。对于大多数产品来说，价格下降会增加需求；而对于钻石而言，低价会杀死这个产业。

5. Greater equality for women might seem to render male-courtship displays redundant. But mating preferences evolved over millennia and will not change quickly. If diamonds were to cease being a way to signal a man’s marriageability, what might take their place?
   5）妇女更多的平等似乎使得男性求爱显得多余。但交配优选进化了千年，并不会很快改变。如果钻石不再是表示男人适合结婚能力的一种方式，那么什么可能取代它们的地位？

6. A different gift, perhaps. In China skewed sex ratios mean that a prospective bridegroom must own an apartment and shower his future in-laws with cash. But a glittering stone goes to the woman, not her family. And it is more than a gift: it is a status symbol, demonstrating that even as a man approaches the expenses of married life, he can still splash out on a bauble. Or a man could rely on more generic forms of display, such as a fancy degree, good job or sharp suit. But these can impress one woman as easily as another, or several simultaneously. He must show commitment—a need not unique to courtship. Salvadoran gangsters get extravagant tattoos; Japanese yakuza cut off a fingertip. These visible signs of allegiance make it hard to defect, and impose heavy costs. But as marriage proposals they would fall short. Few women would feel proud to carry around their fiancé’s severed pinkie.

skewed: something that is skewed is not straight and is higher on one side than the other = crooked
e.g. The picture on the wall was slightly skewed.
shower sb with sth: to give someone a lot of things
e.g. She showered him with kisses.
e.g. Tom showered Amy with presents.
splash out (something) on: to spend a lot of money on something
fall short: fail to meet (expectations or standards)

6）（替代品是）一份不同的礼物，也许。在中国倾斜的性别比意味着一个未来的新郎必须拥有一套公寓并给他未来的亲家大笔现金。但一个闪闪发光的石头归新娘所有，而不是她的家人。它不仅仅是一个礼物：它是一种地位的象征，表明即使一个人要开始解决结婚生活的花费，他仍然可以花大笔钱在一个摆设上。或者一个男人可以依靠更通用的表现形式，例如一个花哨的学位，一份好的工作或一身时髦的西装。但这些可以打动一个女人，也很容易打动另一个女人，或者同时几个。他必须表现出承诺——这种需要不仅是求偶所独有的。萨尔瓦多的匪徒有过量的纹身；日本黑帮切断指尖。这些明显的忠诚标志使其难以背叛，并且造成巨大的成本。但作为求婚，这些都达不到要求。没有女人会为携带她们未婚夫切断的小指而感到自豪。

Love is a multifaceted thing

7. Many millennial women seek a mate who is creative, charitable and earns enough not to live with his parents. The millionaire founder of a startup that makes an app to teach yoga to orphans would be ideal. As a token of his commitment, a suitor might offer the object of his affections 51% of his shares—so much nicer than a joint bank account. Less eligible men could offer instead to link Uber accounts, thus entwining the couple’s reputations: their joint five-star rating would be at risk if either misbehaved. Uber-linking would also allow each to keep track of the other’s whereabouts, discouraging infidelity. Whatever ultimately replaces diamonds, it will surely be digital, not worn on a digit.

entwining : If two things entwine or are entwined, they closely resemble or are linked to each other, and they are difficult to separate or identify.
e.g. Once, years ago, he told me our lives should entwine.

7）许多千禧一代的女性寻求一个有创造力，慷慨的以及赚得足够多能不和他的父母一起生活的伴侣。创办一个应用程序教孤儿瑜伽的百万富翁公司创始人是理想的人选。作为他的承诺的象征，一个追求者可能提供他的爱慕对象51％的股份——比银行联合帐户要好得多。不那么合格的男性可以提供联结的Uber帐户，因此把夫妇的声誉缠绕在一起：如果一方行为不端将对他们的联合五星评级带来风险。 Uber联结也将允许一方追踪对方的行踪，防止出轨。无论最终取代钻石的是什么，它肯定会是数字的，而不是戴在手指上的。

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原文出处：经济学人杂志

译者：七呵夫

本译文仅供个人研习、欣赏语言之用，谢绝任何转载及用于任何商业用途。本译文所涉法律后果均由本人承担。本人同意简书平台在接获有关著作权人的通知后，删除文章。