Whether you’re excited to spend the day doing cute, coupley things with you friends or S.O, or tired of being constantly reminded how single you are, you might have wondered why and who decided that February 14th would be a good time to sell a bunch of cards and chocolate and celebrate romantic love. It’s actually a much more complicated story than I originally intended on finding, but that’s what makes it so good.
As far as timing goes, it is believed that the Catholic church plopped the holiday down on what used to be a Pagan ritual called Lupercalia on February 15th. This festival celebrated the mythological founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus who were raised by a wolf, and Lupercus, the god of agriculture. In this celebration the priests, called Lupercali, would sacrifice a goat (which symbolized fertility) and a dog (which symbolized purity) in the cave where Romulus and Remus were raised. They would then cut the skin into pieces and dip it in the sacrificial blood and then slap women with the sheepskin in order to promote fertility in the coming year. Also during Lupercalia, young men would draw the names of women from a jar and then the two would be “coupled” for the remainder of the festival, or longer if they proved well matched. Romantic, huh?
It is widely believed that Valentine’s Day is named for Saint Valentine, but there are multiple stories about who St. Valentine was, and they may just be multiple stories about the same person.
The first Valentine is rebellious. When Emperor Claudius II decreed that single men make better soldiers and henceforth outlawed soldiers to get married, this Valentine performed marriages in secret because he did not agree with this law. Other versions of this story are that he held Christian weddings at a time when Christians were not allowed to get married, by the same emperor.
The second is the romantic Valentine. He was imprisoned for being Christian and fell in love with his guard's daughter, who he apparently cured of blindness. She brought him food and water in his cell. He wrote her a love letter before he was beheaded and signed it “From your Valentine,” which is supposedly why we send Valentines to this day.
Supposedly, Emperor Claudius II executed both these men on February 14th on different years.
The holiday was later greatly romanticized by Shakespeare and Chaucer and lost its ties with this rather gruesome past, leaving us with the saccharine (and profitable) holiday we celebrate today.
No matter where you will be or who you will be with tomorrow, you can take comfort in the fact that you’re not going to get whipped with a bloody sheepskin, or go on a multi-day blind date, or get beheaded like St. Valentine(s). I hope you use tomorrow to celebrate the love in your life, no matter where its origins lie.
