The Story Behind Valentine’s Day; Spoiler Alert — It’s Not What You Think
Ah, the day where couples send each other gifts and go out on dates while our less fortunate single friends standby with envy. Entering the month of February, some people are looking forward to celebrating the wonderful Valentine’s Day on February 14.
That being said, have you ever wondered how Valentine’s came to be? Did some random couple just decide that “Yes, today is the day that all couples around the world shall celebrate their love for each other”? Well, it’s not as simple as that. In this article, I’ll be diving into the brief history of Valentine’s Day.
The exact origin of Valentine’s Day has not been pinpointed yet, but the general consensus was that it originated in ancient Rome. From February 13 to 15, Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia, a celebration of health and fertility, although how it was celebrated is arguably not that.
Roman men would sacrifice a goat and a dog, then whip naked women lining up with the hides of the slain animal to “increase fertility”. The barbaric celebration also included a matchmaking lottery where young men drew names of women from a jar, kinda like a lucky draw. The couple would then get together for the duration of the festival or longer, provided the match was right.
As for the name of the holiday, there’s a lot of debate about where the name originated from. However, one origin that we will discuss here is where Emperor Claudius II executed two men — both named Valentine — on Feb. 14 on different years in the 3rd century A.D. Their martyrdom was honored by the Catholic Church with the celebration of St. Valentine’s Day.
Later on, Pope Gelasius, I muddled things in the 5th century by combining St Valentine’s Day with Lupercalia in order to convince pagans to convert as well as expel the pagan rituals. The festival was modified by introducing clothes and making it a more theatrical interpretation of what it had once been. Around the same time, the Normans also celebrated Galatin’s Day which meant “lover of women”. This may have led to its confusion and association of St. Valentine’s Day as they sound alike.
As years flew by, sweetness encapsulated the holiday. When Chaucer and Shakespeare started romanticising the holiday in their work, it gained popularity throughout Britain and the rest of Europe. Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls describes a group of birds that gather together in the early spring — on ‘saint valentines day’ — to choose their mates for the year whereas Shakespeare mentions Saint Valentine’s Day in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (4.1.145) and in Hamlet, where he alludes to the superstition that if two single people meet on the morning of Saint Valentine’s Day they will likely get married. Handmade paper cards became the common token of love in the Middle Ages.
Slowly but surely, the holiday crept into the New World. It got its boom during the industrial revolution when factories started mass-producing cards in the 19th century. Particularly in 1913 when Hallmark Cards of Kansas City, began mass-producing valentines cards.
So, there’s that, the story of Valentine’s day. Truth be told, when I was researching this topic I expected a very romantic story of a god meeting a goddess and them falling in love with each other on February 14. Aww, so romantic but no, its origin could not have been more different from how it is celebrated now, starting out as men whipping women; who would’ve thought?
By: Jared Ong Kang Jie
