The History Behind Valentine's Day

"The History Behind Valentine's Day", February 13 2008

Valentine’s Day has not always been full of mushy stuff.

You know the kind. The sort said in the brig of a ship when one of you is a captive, and the other is all tentacle-y faced and bitter. There is some actual history behind this date, aside from what Hallmark has taught us.

There was a time, long ago, when certain days of the year had meanings to them; meanings that had nothing to do with consumerism, buying happiness and multiple cards. The Hallmark holiday is a recent invention, with Hallmark cards and the creative expression business not yet a century old. Personally, I think Valentine’s Day is the worst of the Hallmark holidays; if someone really cares for you, I hope that they would choose their affection more than one day each year. Hell, there are actually anti-Hallmark cards; so strong is the desire to earn money these days. This date has an older tradition than the cards, hearts, chocolates and flowers invented by Mr. Hallmark, which I’m going to explain to you.

Like many

Judeo-Christian holidays, Valentine’s Day started out a pagan tradition. In Rome, the Feast of Lupercalia occurred on February 15th, and was a celebration honouring Juno; the goddess of women and marriage. This date was considered to be the beginning of spring, and when birds would find their mates for the year. During this festival, unmarried women would have their names written down, and all unmarried men in the village would be able to draw a name, thereby being the female’s partner during the festival (while other sources claim the rest of the year). Asserting their masculinity, the men would be running around nearly naked through the streets. In addition to all of this, blood from sacrificed animals would be spilled in the streets in order to prevent wolves from coming into the fields, but also as a fertility aid for women who wished to conceive. This festival was outlawed in the 5th century.

During the Third Century, the Emperor Claudius II believed if his soldiers were married, they would not want to leave their wives, and thus fight for his cause, which is why he prohibited his men from being married. A priest, named

Valentine would go about secretly marrying the soldiers, fulfilling their desires to be wed. Valentine could not understand the pagan belief system, and remained a devout Christian for all of his life. At one point, Valentine was caught and then killed for his crimes. This was of course before he tried to convert the emperor to his faith. It is thought that we are celebrating his death on the 14th of February.

In order to gain more supporters of the slowly-growing Christian faith at that time, politicians and figureheads then amalgamated the two days into one. As Christianity started to dominate, and Paganism declined, and a more romantic view of the holy day began to take place. The first connection between romantic love and Valentine’s Day was not until the 14th Century, where Geoffrey Chaucer wrote a poem about Richard II and Anne’s engagement. The idea of the holiday being based on romantic love began to increase, with mentioned of it in Hamlet, and other literary works.

It was not until the mid 19th century that the Valentine’s Day as we know it (with cards) started to occur. Since then, there has been the addition of the exchange of flowers and gifts, and more recently, jewellery.

I like to point out that most people are ignorant to the fact that we are really celebrating something that involves people running around mostly naked covered in blood. Call me a cynic, but at least I know the true meaning of the holiday everyone else is desperately celebrating. I'm not going into the whole mess blindly.