If you pay any attention to the fingers or morals of your fellow students, you may have noticed the wide variety of "promise rings" floating around the phalanges on campus. Traditionally, promise rings have been a promise for engagement or commitment to whomever one plans to marry.

Popular Christian culture, nudged by the "True Love Waits" campaign, has taken the notion of a promise ring to stand for one's commitment to remaining a virgin until marriage. Often, these rings are given from parents to teens. The problem that I have is when they are given from a father to his daughter.

In Colorado Springs, Colorado, a new trend is surging through churches known as "Purity Balls." At these formal balls, fathers take their daughters as their dates for a night of fellowship and sparkling apple cider. During the evening, there is an organized ceremony in which both father and daughter sign a sexual purity contract. The father's contract is a pledge to guard his daughter's purity.

It reads: "I, (daughter's name)'s father, choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity."

The daughter signs a contract that promises that she will remain a virgin until marriage. The culmination of the evening is when the father places a promise ring dramatically on his daughter's finger.

Now, don't get me wrong. If you want to save your cherry until you marry, I support and respect you. And I'm glad that dads are spending time with their daughters, even if that means dressing up in prom dresses and hanging out at a convention center. I also realize that promise rings can be a hot fashion accessory around Ashton Hall. The problem for me lies in what these rings represent when dads give them to their daughters.

If a female is symbolically "pledging" to stay pure in a contract with her father, her virginity is then indebted to a man rather than herself. Once a female is married, the promise ring slides off and is replaced by a wedding band given to her by her husband. So, exactly at what point is a woman's sexuality and virginity her own?

If you think this isn't an issue of oppressing female sexuality, that dads giving daughters purity rings is just a cute expression of parents instilling moral fiber in their daughters, why don't you ask your dad if he pledged his virginity to his father? I didn't think so. It is also extremely rare that you hear about a mother giving a purity ring to her son, especially in a formal ceremony.

At Purity Balls, dads are teaching daughters that their moral worth lies in keeping their legs crossed. This reminds me of the 18th century didactic fiction novel "Pamela," in which a woman literally dies after losing her virginity-, suggesting that a woman's worth boils down to her sexual purity.

Maybe promise rings don't go that far in saying that a woman is equivalent to her sexual purity, but Purity Balls send the message that in order to stay pure, a daughter better entrust her virginity to a male figure. Purity Balls also stress that one of the most important moral "promises" a daughter can make is specifically restraining her sexuality. I would have hoped that we've evolved farther than an 18th century notion that a female's moral worth is gauged by her sexual chastity.

I'm all about saving your virginity until marriage, and go ahead, wear your promise ring proudly. But you should be remaining sexually pure for yourself and because you believe it's right. Not for the expectations of any man--father or future husband.