The First Valentine ~ back when straight marriage was banned

The legends of the beginnings of Valentine’s Day are varied and confused — some say there were actually three different men called Valentine back in the day, the days of ancient Rome, that is.

One of those stories about Valentine of which fact and legend are impossibly intertwined is this:

It was a crime for young couples in love to marry in Rome, back in the 260s AD.

The ban was set in place by the Emperor Claudius II, the original critic of one man, one woman, equals marriage. That marriage concept — devotion, fidelity — was one of those new-fangled Christian ideas Romans wanted nothing to do with.

Claudius preferred his young soldiers to be devoted to Rome, although sexual matches, gay and straight, were not denied or minded; orgies, too, were preferable in the mind of the emperor compared to this siphoning off of perfectly good Roman soldiers one by one (two by two), to familial commitments of hearth and home.

A sweet wifey, kids bouncing on Daddy’s knee.

Dangerous stuff, this.

Heterosexual young lovers who wanted to marry back in ancient Rome were forced to do so in secret.

Enter Valentine, an early Christian — or more likely, being Rome, Valentinius.

Valentine secretly carried out marriage ceremonies for many years for those desperate to be husband and wife, but eventually there was betrayal and he was arrested by the Emperor’s forces.

In 269 AD, the future Saint Valentine was sentenced to a three-part execution: beating, stoning, and finally decapitation.

Some say he actually did die on February 14th, the day we remember as a day to celebrate love.

How the world turns…

Maybe today we can learn to celebrate all forms of love, however it occurs.

Now that would be a Valentine’s Day to celebrate.

~ This post originally written in 2011 at Open Salon ~