Valentine’s Day hasn’t always been a sacred and fun festival of love. It’s come a long way since the story of St. Valentine, continuing to morph today from country to country.
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Far from the most solemn of holidays, Valentine’s Day is a huge part of everyday life in most places worldwide. For many of us in the West, February 14 is a day to express gratitude to the people we love, especially romantic partners, with chocolates, cards, and fancy dinners.
But what was Valentine’s Day like before the advent of Hallmark and other companies seeking to profit from love? What was it like before we loaded chocolate and peanut butter into heart-shaped molds? The answer takes us to a misty world of centuries ago . . .
Terry Jones of Monty Python examines the evolution of sex and love in this entertaining MagellanTV documentary.
What Do History Books Say?
Though the precise origin of Valentine’s Day is unknown, the most popular story begins in Rome under the reign of Emperor Claudius II during the 3rd century CE. He decreed that young men mustn’t marry because single men would make better soldiers, as they had less to lose.
As the holiday’s titular priest, Valentinus (often anglicized as “Valentine”) immortalized his association with love by marrying young couples under the emperor’s nose. Claudius eventually discovered these arrangements, imprisoning Valentinus until the future saint’s execution. In her article “The Origins of Valentine’s Day,” Cheryl O’Malley relates the story that Valentinus befriended his jailer’s daughter and, before his execution, left her a note signed, “from your Valentine,” coining the phrase everyone uses today.
Another legend suggests that, in the spirit of his faith, a different Valentinus heroically liberated Christians from Roman prisons. For each refugee, Valentinus cut a heart out of parchment to serve as a reminder to have faith in God’s love. But historians doubt that these two Valentines were, in fact, different people.
How Has the Holiday Changed?
The earliest Valentine’s Days coincided with the Roman holiday of Lupercalia, which was essentially a fertility festival that many of us might find eccentric, to say the least. Male participants would sacrifice goats and dogs, then flog female participants with the skins of the dead animals. The Romans believed, dubiously, that this would somehow make the women more fertile. How they reached that conclusion is hard even to imagine.
Over the centuries, a more romantic view arose. From the Arthurian legends through Shakespeare all the way to the modern day, the holiday has graduated from a primal festival of fertility to an innocent celebration of love. The first handwritten letters in honor of Valentine’s Day would appear in the 1500s, and commercial entities would start printing Valentine's greeting cards for the masses by the end of the 18th century. For the first time, these cards would directly reference Cupid, the Roman god of love.
(Credit: Ygor Lyfar, via Unsplash)
Modern Valentine’s Day
As the world modernized, Valentine’s Day spread from country to country in a confusing game of “Telephone.” In the United States and parts of Western Europe, it’s simply a celebration of romantic love with letters, chocolate, and heart-shaped gifts or decorations. But people celebrate differently across the world.
For example, as one of the largest cocoa producers in the world, Ghana designates February 14 as National Chocolate Day. In addition to concerts and performances across the country, restaurants in Ghana offer special chocolate-themed menus for the day. Israelis actually abandon “Valentine’s Day” entirely in favor of Tu B’av, a day that not only celebrates love but also the renewal and rebirth of existing relationships.
As we give and receive chocolate or cards nowadays, it’s hard to imagine a world without Valentine’s Day. Whether you’re lucky enough to have a Valentine this year or not, we hope you remember to purchase chocolate the day after Valentine’s Day when everything’s on sale!
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Title Image credit: Becca Tapert, via Unsplash
