"Just checking-- you guys realize it's not about broker hardware but rather broken trust, right?"
The actual practicalities of the situation play an important in reltionships - soldiers/sailors on the randy, young women torn between forming relationships and wishing to protect themselves from betrayal and being abandoned.
The token is such a common motif that its physical presence presence as guarantee/link between two lovers has to have some significance.
Chambers article deals with the custom as part of the full significance of the ring in human relationships - both symbolic and practical.
In Hardy, the abandoned (by mistake) lover dies giving birth and is buried with the ring.
Would highly recommend the new 'Madding Crowd' by the way - it may be missing Christie/Bates/Finch/Stamp, but it has its own beauty and power, and they don't do too bad a job on the music and song
Jim Carroll