In modern America, Valentine’s Day is a holiday characterized by chocolate candies, Hallmark, and various shades of pink. It elicits notions of love, romantic comedies, and memories of buying those boxed “tear n fold” cards from the CVS in lower school and delivering them to all of your classmates’ cubbies. While many argue that Valentine’s Day is a holiday to make singles feel bad about themselves and give couples a reason to gush and buy cheesy gifts for one another, it’s roots actually reflect a diverse, sometimes even gruesome, history over the centuries. It’s time to acquaint ourselves with the history of Valentine’s Day before we sit down to a romantic candle-lit dinner with our S.O. (or curl up with our girlfriends and watch “When Harry Met Sally”). While there is speculation over the validity of some of the stories that comprise the history behind Valentine’s Day, the legend starts way back in the 3rd century with St. Valentine himself.
Way back when…
One popular story holds that the origins of Valentine’s Day go all the way back to when Emperor Claudius II ruled the Roman Empire. At the time, the empire was experiencing a great deal of turmoil, as threats of invasion were constant. During this conflict amongst the competing states, Emperor Claudius decided that unmarried soldiers fought better than married ones and banned marriage among young people. It was an extremely unpopular decision, as many individuals, including St. Valentine, a priest who whole-heartedly believed marriage was a God-given sacrament, believed Emperor Claudius had no right to be ban marriage. A headstrong man with strong opinions, St. Valentine began to officiate marriages in secret. The legend goes that in order to remind these men not only of their vows but also of God’s love, St. Valentine would cut hearts from parchment and give them to these soldiers whom he had wed. However, his matchmaking scheme didn’t last long, and St. Valentine was soon caught and imprisoned. It is believed that children would pass notes through the prison bars to St. Valentine, which could have been the beginning of the custom of sending love notes on Valentine’s Day. Rumor also has it that he signed a note to his jailer’s daughter shortly before his execution, “Your Valentine,” which eventually popularized the tradition. Sadly, St. Valentine was eventually beheaded and named a martyr by the Christian church because he sacrificed his life to perform the holy sacrament of marriage. However, St. Valentine’s valiant acts did not go unrecognized. At the end of the 5th century, Pope Gelasius I declared February 14 to be St. Valentine’s Day.
Lupercalia…
Observed February 13-15, Lupercalia was an ancient Roman fertility festival. In the 5th century, Pope Gelasius I combined this rite connected to fertility with St. Valentine’s Day in order to “expel the pagan rituals.” Traditionally, this ritual was rather gruesome and involved first sacrificing a dog and a goat before the men would use their insides to hit the women, believing that it would make them fertile. The festival also included a matchmaking lottery in which young men would draw the names of women from a jar. If the match was right, they would be “together” for the remainder of the festival. As the years passed on, it became more of a theatrical interpretation of what it had once been, but it continued to be a day of fertility and matchmaking amongst young singles.
Connection to Romantic Love…
The holiday grew to be more and more romantic into the 12th and 13th centuries when poets like Chaucer romanticized St. Valentine’s Day in their works. In his poem “The Parliament of Fowls,” (1382) Chaucer declares St. Valentine’s Day as the day of love:
For this was on St. Valentine’s Daywhen every fowl cometh there tochoose his mate.
Later on, Shakespeare, too, would cite the holiday as a day of marriage and courting in “Hamlet”:
Good morrow! ‘Tis St. Valentine’s Dayall in the morning betime,and I a maid at yon window,to be your Valentine!
In this scene, Shakespeare is referring to a custom in which single women sat at their windows on Valentine’s Day, believing that the first man they saw would be their true love.
More modern clichés…
We’ve all heard the saying “roses are red, violets are blue…” which has many interchangeable (and potentially inappropriate) endings depending on context. While we probably heard it first on the playground in lower school, the roots of this verse are traced all the way back to a collection of English nursery rhymes, “Gammer Gurton’s Garland” (1784).
The rose is red, the violet’s blue,
The honey’s sweet, and so are you.Thou art my love and I am thine;I drew thee to my Valentine:The lot was cast and then I drew,
And Fortune said it shou’d be you
In 1797, a British publisher issued “The Young Man’s Valentine Writer,” a guide containing various sentimental verses for “the young lover” who was unable to compose his own. The lowered postal rates the following century made for the less-personal-yet-easier-to-send Valentine’s Day cards that we continue to exchange today. Although come to think of it, I can’t recall the last time I, or any of my friends, received a versed poem from a boy on campus…
Valentine’s Day Today…
While the practice of sending cards dates back to the 16th century, it wasn’t until the second half of the 20th century that this tradition was extended to more popular gifts, such as roses and chocolates. In the 1980s, the diamond industry began to promote Valentine’s Day as a day to gift jewelry.
The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that around 190 million cards are sent each year in the U.S. Half of these are given to family members other than a husband or wife, usually children. Remarkably, when the valentine-exchange cards made during in-school activities are included, this figure jumps to 1 billion. Teachers receive the most valentines. In 2013, the average U.S. citizen spent $131 on the holiday.
Thus, while the day may have morphed into a commercialized holiday here in America, we can still use it as a day to appreciate all of the love in our lives. Whether you celebrate with your parents, extended family, significant other, or even just your girlfriends, let’s remember that it is not the amount you spend on cards or flowers that make Valentine’s Day count. Celebrating those we love and appreciate in our lives is what we should all be doing this February 14, even if we show our affection with something as free as a hug.
Read More on the Web:
· http://www.npr.org/2011/02/14/133693152/the-dark-origins-of-valentines-day
· http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-tobin/saint-valentines-day-christian-origins_b_2679323.html