Valentine's day ~ Be mine!~

Valentine's day, an opportunity for lovers to express their love and affection to their partners, or so is communicated by popular culture. To deepen our understanding on what is celebrated every year on February 14, we must know the origin of this holiday. It is important to understand that Valentine's day has different interpretations based on a timeline, therefore it's meaning is seen as a contradiction to something else, like most holidays.

The first interpretation this holiday has relates the God Lupercus. Every February the Romans would celebrate a feast called Lupercalia to honor Lupercus, with the purpose of him not harming the shepherds and their flocks. The Romans would also honor the goddess June Februata by having the women put their names into a box, so that later men would draw a name from the box and be paired with that woman for a year.

Another perspective is: as Christianity prevailed, the priests attempted to change the previous old culture. The church changed the Feast of Lubercus to St. Valentine's day with the purpose of Christianizing it. To make this celebration more meaningful, the church decided that Saint's names would be drawn from an urn by young people as opposed to young men drawing names of women and be paired up. The following year, the young people would have to follow or even imitate the way life of the specific Saint whose name he had drawn. By the fourteen century the usual tradition was reversed back; girls' names were now in the urn or box.

Something that might have opened a path to the modern perspective on Valentine's day is the reign of Emperor Claudius. During the reign of Emperor Claudius, a priest and also one of the seven men whose names were Valentine, was revered by old or young, rich or poor people that attended his services. Also, during this time Emperor Claudius was recruiting men for war without much success. He only recruited young uncommitted men. Due to the undesired war, young me did not wish to leave their families and lovers behind, so marriage was found as a solution. Emperor Claudius prohibited engagements and weddings as an outcome. Priest Valentine thought such actions were unfair, therefore he helped couples secretly marry. Emperor Claudius discovered this rebellion, so he sent Valentine to prison, where he died.

Another possibility explaining our customs today during February 14 is that another of the seven Valentinus was jailed for helping Christians. During his time in jail, he healed a jailer's daughter of blindness. He fell in love with the jailer's daughter and wrote her letters signing "From your Valentine".
The seven Valentines eventually became one, and Pope Gelasius declared the day to honor St. Valentine instead of the pagan god Lupercus. Throughout centuries, this holiday became a pattern of exchanging love letters and became a patron of saint lovers. It also became a day to get engaged and anyone wishing to marry.

Events like these happened in Rome bringing upon a famous holiday. Although there is no specific history record that proves that any of these perspectives were true, people still celebrate it meaningfully. Previously there are just a few of the possible events explaining such holiday, and although these make sense at some extent, these still do not clearly explain our current actions on February 14. In my opinion, this is because of our current culture. The world is known to be round by money and sex rather than love, which is the main aspect of this holiday. Somehow people molded this old tradition into a way that would fit in with our current society. As it was shared in Life Doesn't have to be Meaningless class, this holiday, like many others, was corrupted by us.


I think that people "corrupt" holidays or traditions naturally. Regardless of the culture someone lives under, that person will still make the tradition adapt to him as opposed to him adapting to the tradition. This would have to connect to our nature of being settlers instead of nomads. Thousands of years ago, we have made the world adapt to us, and use it in our advantage. Same happens with holidays. As seen with the ambitious Emperor Claudius, he did not let love be an obstacle to form a great army, even though he was acting against the Pagan festival traditions.


"February 14- The day the birds began to mate"
This holiday is described as best when it is celebrated in pairs. As previously mentioned these corporate messages have made us believe that this is the truth. During Valentine's day people dedicate their times into satisfying themselves and their partners, searching for someone to "mate" with, or suffer due to being single. Often, young people are those who strongly celebrate this tradition. It is considered as "hunting" due to the lack of commitment we still strongly possess. Older people are more focused into forming a life along with someone else, therefore their perspective on Valentine's day differs from the youth. It is also traditional to give love letters or cards (not necessarily an exchange), chocolates or flowers (specially red roses). From each present, there is an interpretation which does not only explains the current society behavior, but what culture have taught us about the meaning each object or action possess. For example: the flowers, which are known as sex plants symbolizing desire for sexual intercourse when these are given to a lover. Or, the main colour of this Holiday, red, which symbolizes love or/and passion, but also blood reflecting violence.


The change that this holiday has been through is considerably great. I personally wonder, how will long these traditions last until they get modified? We have slowly developed this holiday as time goes on. It is inevitable to maintain people for a long period of time following the same traditions. Change is naturally needed, otherwise life would be even more boring.