Union’s Ending? You Keep the Gifts

For all of you whose impulse marriage was followed quickly by an impulse dissolution, here is today’s social brain-scratcher:

What do you do with all the loot?

If people bring gifts to your hey-honey, let’s-get-married wedding ceremony, or if they send presents soon thereafter, what happens when the union ends unhappily ever after?

Etiquette guru Judith Martin (also known as the author and syndicated columnist Miss Manners) says, basically, once you’re married, the stuff is yours. “I do,” in short, translates to “I keep”--the gifts.

But, Martin adds: “This is not to discourage anyone who may be gracious enough to return the gifts.”