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February 14 is the one holiday made for showing romantic love and affection. The handwritten cards, heart-shaped chocolate boxes and red roses are all staples of the annual tradition, recognized easily at any convenience store, all in the name of St. Valentine. But who was this mysterious saint and where did these traditions come from?
Trust me: the origins of this festival of candy and cupids are actually sexual, dark, bloody and not Christian at all!
‘When in Rome, Do as the Romans Do’
Around Mid-February (which marked the end of the old year, as the ancient calendar year began in March/Martius, named after the Roman god Mars), the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. It was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the mythical city founders Romulus and Remus (otherwise nicknamed the “R&R twins”).
Ohhh boy, were those celebrations brutal!
For starters, Romans would gather at a sacred cave where the legendary she-wolf (“lupa”) took care of the mythical R&R infants. Priests called “Luperci” would sacrifice a goat (for fertility), and a dog (for purification) and dip strips of the hide into the sacrificial blood. Next, naked, young men would take strips of hide from the sacrificed animals and use them to whip young women, to promote fertility. Far from being fearful, Roman ladies welcomed the whipping, because the Romans believed that it would make childless women more fertile whilst blessing pregnant wives with the gift of an easy birth. Makes sense, don’t you think?
The violent fete included a sex-match lottery. According to a legend, all young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. Each young man drew the name of a girl to hook up with for the duration of the festival — or longer, if they pleased (no obligations, no strings attached, just pure sex). The Romans knew nothing about gene pools or human DNA but they sure knew how to mix and match.
Why Not Continue Those Ancient Rites? – you may ask
As Christianity swept across the globe, many pagan traditions were absorbed and adapted into the Christian faith. Lupercalia was one of the few pagan holidays still celebrated 150 years after the new religion was legalized in the Roman Empire. The fertility fest survived the initial rise of Christianity and kept its popularity until the end of the 5th century, when it was outlawed. Pope Gelasius deemed the ancient, sexual rites as “un-Christian” and in order to expel the pagan rituals, he declared February 14 the commemoration of the anniversary of St. Valentine’s death. In other words: the Christian church has decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to “Christianize” the pagan celebration of Lupercalia.
Who Was St. Valentine?
Now regarded as the patron of love, Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. Emperor Claudius II wanted to have his soldiers thinking about war and not about women, so he banned young men from getting married.
Brave priest Valentine defied the Emperor and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret, eventually getting himself arrested. The legend has it that while in prison, he seduced his jailor’s daughter, who visited him during his confinement. Thanks to their love-making, the blind girl got her eye-sight again. Hallelujah! Sex magic at its best!
The imprisoned priest actually sent the first love greeting himself just before his death. After his sentence finally came through, Valentine supposedly left a farewell note to the young lady and signed it ‘from your Valentine’. The romantic hero then exited the jail and walked towards the most unromantic of ends – death by beating and decapitation, which occured on Feb.14, 270 AD
You can find his flower-adorned skull on display in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome. However, the skeletal remains were excavated from a catacomb near Rome in the early 1800s, so the venerated relics might not be St. Valentine’s skeleton at all.
Pink Roses and Heart-Shaped Chocolate Boxes
It was not until much later, however, that February 14 became associated with love instead of St. Valentine’s martyrdom. During the Middle Ages, it was believed that European birds began to pair up in mid-February, specifically around the fourteenth. The famed English poet, Geoffrey Chaucer, author of ‘The Canterbury Tales’, is often credited as the man who made the link.
‘For this was on seynt Volantynys day. Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make,’ Chaucer wrote in his poem ‘Parlement of Foules’, making one of the earliest references about St. Valentine’s Day being a day for those in love.
The oldest known valentine greetings still in existence today is a letter written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, when he was 21 years old, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. He left the tower 25 years later and his beloved wife was already dead. Tough luck…
Also William Shakespeare helped romanticize Valentine’s Day in his work (see Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5:
To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.)
As the years went on, the celebration grew sweeter, with pink hearts and candy. By the middle of the 18th, handmade paper cards became the tokens-du-jour. It was common for friends and lovers of all social classes to exchange small gifts of affection or handwritten notes.
Industrialisation made things even easier for smitten couples. And in 1913, Hallmark Cards began mass-production of illustrated romantic cards. From there the holiday gradually grew into the billion-dollar industry that it is today.
Money, Money, Money
Nowadays an estimated 145 million Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year, making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year (after Christmas).
Thanks to commercialization, the pink holiday is a big business. Many lovebirds will break the bank buying jewelry and red roses for their beloved.
Although gaining global popularity, Valentine’s Day is NOT celebrated in places like Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia, because the holiday contradicts some aspects of Islam. Other countries, like India, resist Valentine’s Day for political reasons, because they believe the holiday promotes Western values.
Whether you celebrate Valentine’s Day or not, you must admit, that our abilities to form romantic (and sexual!) relationships have connected humans for centuries, from the ancient Roman Empire to today. Unfortunately modern folks no longer whip each other with sacrificial hides (that could be so much fun!), but we all still enjoy some sweet sweet love…
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1 Comment
I’d love to watch a p0rn flick starring Miss Daisy Diamond being whiped with sacrifical hides and then taken on an altar 😉