Stealing wedding rings symbolically destroyed group identity and procreative future

Evidence

A final dispossession awaited Bosnian Muslim women. Buses of refugees expelled from Serb army territory were stopped by militias and army units. From these refugees, who had already lost their communities, homes, and household possessions, everything else of possible value was now taken, from hard currency to jewelry of little value and sometimes even shoes. Stolen wedding rings-of little monetary value in relation to the enormous booty taken by the militias-represented the last symbol of group identity as well as a symbol of a future procreative possibility. The symbolism of a procreative future seems to be behind the curious obsession of some Serb religious nationalists with stealing wedding rings from Muslim women and giving them to their own girlfriends. — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed, 105

Categorization

• CANDY: The detail of wedding rings being given to nationalist girlfriends as trophies is a grimly memorable, retellable anecdote.
• BMF: The theft of wedding rings as a symbolic severing of futures and transfer of the bride’s fertility to the conqueror’s women evokes Achebe’s treatment of symbolic objects and lineage-bearing, but the fit is thematic rather than a specific plot device.