Seven Years Lost, A Lifetime of Vengeance

There was an unwritten law among the ruling families of Harbor Bay, older than any of the men who enforced it.

When a Don brought home a new woman and meant to seat her at his side, the one she was replacing had to draw the Matriarch's Jade Ring from her own finger, in front of every made man and every painted wife in the room, and slide it onto the new woman's hand herself. A surrender performed in public. A transfer of respect, witnessed, so that no one could later claim it had been stolen rather than given.