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| Credit: iStock/Unsplash |
Since when did February become so focused on Valentine's Day? Near the beginning of the month, I walked into a CVS and they already had out all the chocolates and candies and whatever else they want you to waste your money on. Like, come on now.
This year, I must admit, I was excited for Valentine's. I had put away my "haha, I'm forever alone" catchphrase and was ready to show some love. However, my efforts did not provide the results I was expecting... But it's a rather complicated and private story that I would prefer to not share. Just know that my "haha, I'm forever alone" jokes are back.
While sobbing over my failed romantic endeavors, I've got to wondering what the heck Valentine's Day is even about. Like how did it get started? Why does it have to cause me so much anguish? Unfortunately, Google can't really help with the latter, but I was able to get some answers for the former. So, without further ado, I'm going to be summarizing what I found.
Of Course It Started with a Pagan Festival
| There's a lot going on here. Credit: vivianlawry.com |
Like Halloween, Valentine's Day has some history with a pagan festival way back in the day. The festival was called Lupercalia and involved some really wacky stuff. More on that in a bit. Lupercalia was held to promote fertility and to honor the female wolf that took care of Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome.
Also, on a side note, I found out that the cave where those boys were raised by the wolf was named Lupercal. Now, I don't know if you play Genshin Impact, but when I did, I used to be a Razor main. And this dude would occasionally grunt out something about a "lupercal" because he's a wild wolf child. I just connected the cave's name and Razor's dying dialogue and I was like, "wow that's so cool!" I thought it was a word for "family" hidden away in some unseen game lore, but this is 10x better with how it relates to a real legend.
Anyways, more about what happens at the festival. It starts with a sacrifice of a goat and dog, which is symbolic of fertility things. Then they have a feast. Killing animals can make a dude pretty hungry I guess. After they eat, they take strips from the dead goat's hide and run around the town whipping women with the strips. By "they", I mean the male priests called Luperci who are naked. This was supposed to make the women more fertile apparently. Fun times.
There was also this "pick a name from a hat" type deal during the festival. Men would choose a woman's name from a jar to stay with them for the rest of Lupercalia. They would normally end up getting married. It sounds like being randomly assigned a partner in a classroom, which can be rather stressful, but yay romance?
There Was a Saint Too
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| St. Valentine on a window. Credit: CBN |
Along with Lupercalia, Valentine's Day also has some relation to Saint Valentine. There is a lot of mystery surrounding him; I even read something that said St. Valentine was two different men. It may be a common name, but still. Pretty confusing.
So the main story is that St. Valentine got executed on February 14th, 3rd Century A.D. by the Roman Emperor. Apparently, they put him in jail because he was marrying Christian couples on the down-low. He also sent this note to his jailer's daughter like "From your Valentine." I guess that's where the note-sending thing came from. The holiday also shares his name, so that makes sense as well.
Tying it All Together
As always, the Pope or whoever attempted to remove the pagan festival. Pope Gelasius I in the 5th Century A.D. deleted Lupercalia and said Feb 14th would be used to celebrate the martyrdom of St. Valentine instead.
In the 14th century, Geoffery Chaucer was the first person to record Valentine's Day as being more romantically inclined. He was a medieval English poet and lots of people must've read his 1375 poem, "Parliament of Foules" because Valentine's day wasn't even considered romantic before then.
Conclusion
Yeah so after all of that, we're now stuck with this love holiday today. I wish I could just treat it as a normal day, but alas, mainstream media won't let me. Also, I just remembered, February is supposed to be Black History Month. But it gets overshadowed by Valentine's Day or something. So much for that.
Please leave any comments or condolences down below, thank you!
Sources
History.com - History of Valentine's Day
History.com - 6 Surprising Facts About St. Valentine
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