Valentine's Day's True Origins

Ahhh...Valentine's Day. The day of the year to express your love in the form of chocolate covered crap, sappy cards, and flowers that usually bite the dust within a week's time. But where did this holiday come from? Who decided that Valentine's Day would be a universal day to show your romantic side? How the heck did these cheesy traditions begin? Well, I am here to answer these questions and many more about the origins of Valentine's Day, as we know it.

Many people are not aware that Valentine's Day's beginning (along with other major holidays such as Christmas, Easter, and All Saints Day) can be attributed to a compilation of Christian traditions and Pagan traditions, dating back thousands of years before Christ. It really amazes me that every time I research the beginnings of a holiday, somehow it always goes back to a Pagan holiday that was drowned out by the Catholic church in order to convert the Pagans more reasily and claim the year as their own. Valentines Day is no exception to this action of the Roman Catholic Church.

February 14th was the day of the Roman Pagan fertility celebration called Lupercalia..some believe this was celebrated in honor of the Roman wolf-god Lupercal and possibly also in honor of the fertility god Faunus. The scene of the Lupercalia festival was definitely a sight to behold...the Pagan traditions would involve the Roman men dressing in goat or sheep's skin and ran around aimlessly with whips, whipping the women of the town to ensure fertility. Hey, I never said the ancient Pagans' beliefs always made a lot of sense...nevertheless, these things happened before the Christian church was established. Once the church was established in Rome, in around 300 AD, a Roman emperor named Claudius decided to place a law against marriage for many years in order to keep his soldiers dedicated to their battalion duties...if they were going off and getting married, Lord knows how homesick they would be and failure would surely be around the corner with a lovesick army fighting half-heartedly in the battlefield. According to the History Channel's Valentine's Day Origins special, Saint Valentine disagreed wholeheartedly with this tyrannical law and aided young couples in secret wedding vows. Saint Valentine's betrayal towards the emperor was discovered and he was eventually thrown into jail. There Saint Valentine was visited by many of the young people he had assisted and they would pass him letters and other small gifts through the prison bars, in appreciation for all that the Saint had done for them. It is said that he passed a note back to one young couple, signing it "With Love, Your Valentine"...which is how the exchanging of "Valentines" tradition began.

Saint Valentine was not honored by the Church until the year of 496 AD, when the Pope declared February 14th as Saint Valentine's Day. Ironically, this was the same date as the ancient pagan holiday Lupercalia...or maybe not so ironically. However, like with many other Christianized pagan holidays, some of the very first pagan traditions continued to be held...sometimes the pagan holiday itself was still celebrated in secrecy.

Anthemius ruled the empire from 467 to 472 A.D.

"After the conversion of the Imperial city, the Christians still continued, in the month of February, the annual celebration of the Lupercalia; to which they ascribed a secret and mysterious influence on the genial powers of the animal and vegetable world. " - Edward Gibbons from The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Who is that chubby child that is somehow able to fly (even though his wings do not look strong enough to hold his weight) and sporadically shoots arrows of love into the asses of unsuspecting single idiots? They call him Cupid and say that he is the giver of love...and aids people in falling for one another with the invisible and painless shot of his arrow...seriously, people?! Who made this crap up? Well, once again as with many holidays, Pagan beliefs are the forerunner to this modernly maimed and now-humorous Valentine inamorata.

Cupid was actually a Roman Pagan god in ancient times...the parallel god to the Greek's Eros...god of Love. Eros and Cupid were viewed as dark and lustful gods...constantly playing with the concept of love and fantasy. Cupid, as the Romans' god of love, did his duties to society by pairing odd people up...which led to his demise. Cupid was sent to earth by his mother, the goddess Venus, to kill a woman named Psyche. Apparently Venus was maddening due to her jealousy of this beautiful woman. She had to have this woman's beauty destroyed...which meant killing her. Cupid went to earth with this task in the forefront of his dark mind, but when he arrived and laid eyes on this fair maiden...he fell deeply in love with her. Cupid did everything in his power to arrange for Psyche to be with him in peace, but in the end Psyche decided against Cupid's idea and did not trust him, as he had never truly revealed himself visibly to her. Psyche changed her mind, like most women do, and went after Cupid but ended up jumping through many hoops that Cupid's mother Venus had set up. Apparently Venus was still jealous of Psyche and wanted to torture her as much as she possibly could before aiding her in being with her son, Cupid. Those ancient gods were pretty sadistic, if you ask me. Nonetheless, Psyche passed through all of Venus' unfair circles of hatred and was able to marry Cupid. Upon this marriage, Psyche was made into a Goddess. So I guess you could say they lived happily ever after.

But how did Cupid get transformed from a dark, erotic Roman god of love to a chunky innocent child with fairy wings? Well, probably the same way in which Saint Nicholas evolved (or regressed) from a dignified and holy saint to a jolly, plump old elf that wields a magical sleigh and flying reindeer. America has a track record of molding and changing historical figures and traditions to meet their marketing and economic needs. Hence the reason why certain companies like Godiva and Hallmark net millions of dollars every year on February 14th. It is very clear that Valentines Day's true origins had nothing to do with chocolates or diamonds, and while Cupid was the god of love...I am pretty sure that he was not a chunky toddler that shot arrows into people's rears to bring them together.

Now that we have examined the real origins of Valentine's Day...do we celebrate it in the way it was originally meant to be celebrated? Maybe not...but maybe. It really depends on how one looks at it. Compare today's Valentine's Day debauchery and to the ancient Pagan's Lupercalia festival...they could seem similar. Fertility festival...romance and hopefully-guaranteed sex...sounds similar to me! But compare the Roman Catholic version of Saint Valentine's Day to our version of Valentine's Day and one does not see too much commonground...but one could point out that the day was to honor a Saint who tried his damndest to keep young love alive. Whatever the beginnings, the holiday is supposed to wholly represent love...romantic love in its sappiest form. I think this concept has been misconstrued and abused by America...very much like the other major holidays we celebrate in this country. But that does not necessarily shock me...

So let us take a peek at the typical Valentine's Day products and how much money the large companies made last Valentine's Day:

1. Chocolates. The two typical large chocolate companies that come to my mind are Godiva (being the higher class end of candy-makers) and Russell Stover (the cheaper of the two). An estimated $703,500,000 was divvied up amongst the candy companies last Valentine's Day, 2010. How many hungry children could that money feed? Maybe people should take the money that they spend on making their mates fat and contribute it to some of the poor hungry kids in this country and others.

2. Greeting Cards. Awww, how many people love to receive sweet and sentimental Valentine's Day cards every year? Approximately 160 million cards are estimated to be sold for this Valentine's Day...couldn't one just make a card out of construction paper and crayons? What happened to those days when a personal artistic touch was key to love? Gone are those days, and we can blame that on Esther Howland. She started the mass production of valentine's day cards in the United States back in 1850, and the epidemic has only turned into a pandemic since then. America's sucking other countries into our world of cheeseball sentiment in the form of a folded piece of stock paper adorned with hearts and bows. Do we really need these things every year, folks? I mean, I am all about sharing the love...but 160 million cards seems a bit ridiculous to me. How many trees did it take to make those cards, I wonder?

3. Flowers. What lady does not adore to receive a bouquet of red roses on Valentine's Day? Well, I am one of the ladies that does enjoy a bouquet of red roses...that's right, I admitted it. And as much as I enjoy showing my roses off to my office and gazing at their delicate beauty for a week...that's about all it lasts...a week. Do we really need something that wilts and dies a week after Valentine's Day? Apparently our wants have taken the place of our needs.

4. Diamonds and jewelry. Ohhh, diamonds. They are truly a girl's best friend...really? Do they comfort a woman when she needs a shoulder to cry on? Does a diamond necklace call you on your birthday or watch your child when you and your husband need a break from family life? Well, I have never owned a piece of jewelry that could do any of these things for me...so I am going to go out on a limb and say that Diamonds probably are not a girl's best friend...unless you are Marilyn Monroe (and well, she's not around anymore), so I say we boycott this phrase. Most of the bling bling that women are flashing around on V Day are most likely blood diamonds, anyway (I do realize how cynical I am being).

So what is the point in this endless menagerie of useless Valentine's Day products? To line the pockets of billion dollar corporations. Will I contribute to these corporations' pockets? Embarrassingly, I probably will at least buy a Valentine's card for my hubby. So what are my plans for Valentine's Day? My husband and I are going to celebrate the ancient Roman way...we will be chasing each other around the house with sheepskin outfits and whips! No steak dinners, chocolate covered cherries or dying roses are required.