What is Love?
Valentine’s Day Special.
I woke up this morning and checked my phone to find all my friends and acquaintances uploading statuses about Valentine’s day, about love and how being in love is such an amazing feeling. All couples were on an emotional high and single people were all depressed and uploading status messages like
“FOREVER ALONE”
This is just a template for the sadness that overwhelms singles out there who feel all they can do on Valentine’s day is to hug their teddies tight and crawl into their beds. sobbing.
Sounds sad, doesn’t it?
Not so much when you dig a little deep into the loving and joyous occasion that is VALENTINE’S DAY.
No one has ever wondered why we celebrate it.
We think Valentine’s day is a day of love between couples. But that isn’t true.
If you look deeper, Valentine’s day seems to have a very dark past.
The History of Valentine’s day
Apart from being celebrated as a commercial holiday, Valentine’s day has its roots buried way down in ancient Rome. Now there are several “legends” behind it, one of them being the classic tale of St. Valentine, who would marry off lovers in secrecy because the king believed that bachelors make better soldiers. When the king found out about this secret “matrimonial” enterprise, he had St. Valentine executed. No one knows if it’s actually true. Every single blog and website that I have read tells the story differently (I will state those websites at the bottom).
Valentine’s day primarily celebrates the martyrdom of St. Valentine, according to one of the legends, who would aid convicts imprisoned by King Claudius II.
Now there are many books on the subject of martyrs (known as martyrdology ) which have written about St. Valentine. Some books say he was executed because he would borrow the punishments from other saints as his own. There were several martyrs at the time who were named Valentine and were executed around the same time of the year, again, according to another legend.
Some legends say he was executed because he attempted to convert King Claudius II to Christianity. Before being executed the next morning, he healed the jailer’s blind daughter Julia and helped her see. It is said that St. Valentine would write cards to this girl from his cell with the footer “from your Valentine” which has caught on till today.
Most of the stories of “Valentine” are related to suffering and martyrdom. Few actually state things about love and affection between partners in a relationship. The love talked about in these books to refers to the Love for God. Now I don’t claim to be an expert in this subject, but as far as I have read , this is what I have come across. Feel free to prove me wrong.
There is one legend though that really creeped me out.
It is said that in ancient Rome, from February 13th to 15th, Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. They would sacrifice a goat for fertility and a dog for purity. They would then whip women with the hides of these animals, because it was believed that this would make them fertile. Then the names of all the women would be put into an urn(like chits in a bowl), and be picked at random by men and the pair was “coupled” for the duration of the festival, or permanently if the couple was compatible (although I doubt the woman had an option).
Anyways, a few emperors later promoted the festival by combining St. Valentines day and the Lupercalia feast, where people believed that Valentines day was a day for fertility and love.
After a few years, playwrights like Shakespeare began romanticizing the festival over and over in their plays, which made the festival popular all over Europe, and of course the Industrial Revolution was another big boost to the commercialization of selling cards and gifts to your “loved one”.
The Whole Idea
If you really want to celebrate Valentine’s day, you should celebrate the general idea of Love. Not just wait that a girl/boy will hopelessly fall into your arms.
My teacher once told me that Valentine’s day is where you celebrate all kinds of love. Love for family, love for yourself, love for friends, pets, love for your work, love for your fellow countrymen, etc. It is the whole Idea of loving that we forget as humans in this practical world of ours.
There is no rule in the book that says you must and must have someone to cuddle at night. That only happens in the movies. If you have a certain desperation to be with someone just for the sake of it, you need help. As a human cannot live in isolation, but a human can surely live without the constant need of a lover. It can be done. Learn to love yourself and the people you already have around you. You won’t need a lover to celebrate Valentine’s day. The stereotypes on television only exist to prove a point that wasn’t meant to be made in the first place.
