The impact of objects on patterns of thought and emotion is little understood (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton 1981). Goods create intelligibility, and propos of Levi Strauss, are"good to think with." That is, commodities make the categories of culture stable and visible; they are a nonverbal medium for the human "creative faculty" (Douglas and Isherwood 1979), Gifts can facilitate role modeling by transmitting an already articulated set of social values or by structuring a new set of expectations (Csiks zentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton 1981). Toys and engagement rings each perform this function efficiently. Traditionally, gender expectations are encoded in the former, and fidelity expectations are encoded in the latter.