With Valentine’s Day just around the corner it’s easy to become pessimistic about “love” when inundated with cheesy Clinton cards, manic looking teddy bears and wilting roses. When you’re bent over the toilet revisiting multiple trays of strawberry cream filled chocolates after having spent the evening surrounded by sickeningly sweet couples indulging in mass public displays of affection, it’s understandable that you might be questioning if we’ve gone too far, if we’re making Cupid work a little too hard for his money. However this year Cupid has had an authentic boost from the most unlikely of places: parliament.
The historic corridors of Whitehall aren’t where you’d usually look for a public celebration of love in all its forms but the vote this week in favour of legalising gay marriage in the UK has changed that (momentarily at least). Despite arguments that the Gay Marriage Bill exposed fundamental splits in the Conservative party, and that it is being manipulated politically, it’s hard to deny that the passing of the Marriage Bill through the house of commons is a great hurdle crossed for equality.
Valentine’s Day has acquired a bad press in recent decades with arguments that it’s outdated, promoting a restrictive, normative, ideal of a heterosexual relationship, and that it is too closely intertwined with the commercialism that exploits it. If we look at Valentine’s Day in this light it quickly becomes something slightly offensive, where women are simply there to be ‘courted’ with expensive gifts and where romantic love is confined to a narrow, idealised definition which no one can expect to replicate outside of The Notebook.
However, if we take inspiration from the MP’s who voted through the Equal Marriage Bill, it becomes possible to redefine how we see Valentine’s Day. Twenty years ago it would have been incomprehensible that UK Parliament would have voted in favour of legalising gay marriage. Fifty years ago it would have been impossible for two gay women to go out for dinner together in public on Valentine’s Day, or any other day for that matter. Sixty years ago the thought of two adults living together unmarried would have been scandalous. Just over a hundred years ago marrying for love would have been a laughable concept. What we think about romantic relationships is constantly changing, how we define what is socially acceptable is ever shifting; love itself is continually evolving, growing and transforming.
Valentine’s Day should not just be about flowers, cards or presents and it shouldn’t revolve around romantic gestures or grand declarations. This Valentine’s Day we should appreciate, single or not, gay or straight, that we are so fortunate that we live in a country and time where we can, should we so wish, publically declare our love for another person. We should celebrate that we are free to love whoever we chose, man or woman, and that we can do so in the way we wish, married or unmarried, committed or uncommitted.
Photo Credits: guardian.co.uk; lovewallpapers.com