T'Pring was a Vulcan female who lived during the 23rd century. At the age of seven, as was traditional on Vulcan, the parents of T'Pring and Spock arranged for the two to be bonded to each other, with the intention that they would marry upon reaching adulthood.
After being bonded, the two did not maintain regular contact, and knew very little of each other as they grew up. Spock left Vulcan for a number of years, first to attend Starfleet Academy, then on a variety of assignments for Starfleet. In 2253 Spock was ordered to return to Vulcan to finalize his marriage arrangements, but Spock would not name a wedding date, stating that he would wait for pon farr. (TOS novel Vulcan's Glory).
Spock fell in love with a Vulcan woman named T'Pris during his first mission on the Enterprise, and intended to dissolve his bond to T'Pring before finding out that T'Pris had been murdered by Daniel Reed. (TOS novel Vulcan's Glory).
While Spock was away from Vulcan, T'Pring began a relationship with the Vulcan Stonn. When Spock experienced pon farr, he returned to Vulcan to take T'Pring as his wife. T'Pring forced Spock to fight James T. Kirk for her hand in marriage. After McCoy used a neural paralyzer to make it appear as though Spock had killed Kirk, Spock found that his pon farr had ceased. He asked T'Pring to explain why she inisted on having Spock fight Kirk. T'Pring explained that if Spock wanted the fight then Spock would probably not want her and let her stay with Stonn. If Kirk won, then he would not have wanted T'Pring and would've been released to stay with Stonn. And even if Spock married T'Pring, he would be gone and she would still be free to stay with Stonn. Spock decided to allow Stonn to take T'Pring as his wife, telling him that having her would not be the same as wanting her. (TOS episode Amok Time).
See Also
- T'Pring article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.
- T'Pring article at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.