Emotions and Jewlery

Jewelry in the Cycles of Everyday Life

Petra Ahde

4. Emotions and Jewelry

Strong emotions often arise when wearing or just possessing jewelry, since they are often received as gifts, inherited, bought for an important reason, or there has been hard work done to achieve it. Later, the emotional attachments may provoke or restrict wearing them. When memories related to the jewelry are truly meaningful the possessor considers wearing it more carefully. Since some people are afraid of loosing their significant jewelry, they only wear them on important occasions. Some emotion attached jewelry is worn both on special occasions and in everyday life. They may ought to be worn on certain occasions. For example one woman writes about her brooch which she got as a Christmas present when she was a young girl. Back then she was helping a lady in her everyday errands and they became close friends despite of their age difference. This brooch figured a dancing girl. Decades later this lady passed away, and the woman went to the funeral wearing this brooch. She felt that she had to wear that particular brooch because she had got it from the lady. However, since the brooch figured a dancing girl, she felt it was inappropriate to wear it at a funeral. She decided to wear it inside her jacket, so the others would not see the brooch but she could feel the closeness to the lady. For her it was obligatory to wear the brooch because of the emotional attachment. The codes of wearing jewelry in particular venues do not have strict rules, but are rather emotional unwritten codes of behaviour or habits to perpetuate traditions.
http://www.iasdr2009.org/ap/Papers/Poster%20Highlight/Jewelry%20in%20the%20Cycles%20of%20Everyday%20Life.pdf