Taboo Trades Podcast: Who Keeps The Engagement Ring with Naomi Cahn and Julia Mahoney

My guests this week are my UVA Law colleagues, Naomi Cahn and Julia Mahoney. We’re discussing their recent article in The Conversation, “Who Keeps The Wedding Ring After A Breakup?.” We also discuss work by Margaret Brinig, Rebecca Tushnet, and Viviana Zelizer. Finally, we demonstrate that I utterly fail to understand engagement ring pricing.


Naomi Cahn is the Justice Anthony M. Kennedy Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia and is an expert in family law, trusts and estates, feminist jurisprudence, reproductive technology, and aging and the law. She is the co-director of UVA Law’s Family Law Center. Julia Mahoney is the John S. Battle Professor of Law at the University of Virginia, where she teaches courses in property and constitutional law, as well as a seminar, “Feminism and the Free Market.” Her scholarship includes works on altruism and the provision of biomedical technologies.

Naomi Cahn and Julia D. Mahoney, Who keeps the engagement ring after a breakup? 2 law professors explain why you might want a prenup for your diamond, The Conversation, March 22, 2023
Julia Mahoney Bio, University of Virginia
Naomi Cahn Bio, University of Virginia
Course description, Feminism and the Free Market
Margaret F. Brinig, Rings and Promises, 6 J.L. Econ & Org. 203 (1990).
Tushnet, Rebecca. “Rules of engagement.” Yale LJ 107 (1997): 2583.
Viviana A. Zelizer, The Purchase of Intimacy, Princeton University Press (2007)

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