It’s always down to us men to deal with the wedding proposal, isn’t it? We have to deal with all the stresses and strains of building up to the moment when we open the box containing the diamond engagement rings we have chosen, hoping that the answer will be yes.

Well, in these days of equality women are making the decision that they will be the one who pops the question, but even so, they usually wait for a Leap Year before they do this. It has long been a tradition that this is the only time a woman can make the proposal, and this can be traced back to a time when the rules of courtship were strict, and women were only allowed to make a proposal on one day every four years, February 29th.

Historians believe this tradition was started in Ireland during the fifth century when St. Bridget complained to St. Patrick about women having to wait for a proposal. Apparently, St. Patrick said that women could propose on this one day in February during the leap year.

Others believe that the chance for women to propose came about because of a section of English law which said that February 29th had no legal status. People assumed that traditions would also have no status on that day, so it could also be used to fix an old and unjust custom that only let men propose marriage.

The first documentation of women proposing came in 1288 when Scotland passed a law which allowed women to propose to their man. So, ladies, you have two years to choose the diamond engagement rings and wedding ring sets because the next Leap Year is 2012. Forget about the Olympics and start looking at the gold engagement rings and diamond engagement rings right here on the Marlow’s Certified Diamonds website.