The Myth Behind Valentine’s Day

By Sophia Elise

To the masses, Valentine’s Day evokes thoughts of chocolate, flowers, romance, cards, and cherubic angels shooting us with arrows. I also understand there are special diamonds, jewelry, lingerie and secret indulgences you can buy your ‘valentine’… but when did all the madness, attributed to this day, begin? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I started seeing Valentine’s Day displays in the stores the day after they cleaned out most of the Christmas merchandise, thinking to myself “Hey don’t throw that Christmas stuff out, we could use it for Valentine’s Day, and after all it is red and white..!” Come to think of it… St. Valentine, the martyr for whom the date is named, does look an awful lot like St. Nicholas.

I attended my very first Valentine’s Day event when I was 10-years old. Growing up in England we did not take time out of class time to have celebrations so it was first exposure to the ‘holiday’. It was the first year that I was enrolled in school in the United States, after moving from England, and I remember having to take a shoebox to school. I soon learned we were decorate these shoe boxes with paint, construction paper and pink and red heart shaped doilies, after cutting a little slot in the top for our ‘valentines’. We were instructed to make sure we had a card for everyone in the class, mine had Casper on them, and the night before I sat and wrote all my classmates names on the envelopes. During the Valentine’s party we would all play postmen as we walked around the class putting the cards into the decorated boxes. Then we would sit and open them, smiling at all of our ‘truly yours’ and ‘be mines’ while indulging in lard and sugar frosted cupcakes brought by the ‘class Mom’.

Sadly today’s society views Valentine’s Day as more of an obligation ~ forced upon the masses as a whole, telling us we better recognize our ‘sweetheart’ with flowers and fluff or they will resent us for the rest of the year. I remember seeing something on MSN last year ’10 Days Left to make sure you are not in the Dog House’…or something to that effect.

I mean, seriously folks, come one, when did it turn to this? Why is it such an obligation, an expectation to commercially express our love on February 14^th? Personally, I blame it on Hallmark! Regardless of its origins, today Valentine’s Day is a highly over-commercialized western celebration only celebrated in a few countries around the globe. The Greeting Card Association estimates that some billion valentines are sent per year.

Valentine’s Day originated from pagan customs of Ancient Rome in 300-400 B.C, where on February 14^th and 15^th the Romans celebrated Lupercalia. During this festival they practiced the ritual of the sacred sexual union, the Heiros Gamos, on February 14^th, to honor Juno Fructifier, Queen of the Roman gods and goddesses as well as goddess of marriage. As part of this celebration, maiden’s names in were placed in boxes, I am sure without the pink and red doilies. These “love notes” were called “billets.” A young man would draw a name and the maiden was his sex partner for the coming year commencing in March until the next February celebration. The matches were primarily for the sexual union of the Hieros Gamos but it was not unusual for the pairings to end in marriage. The couples who were matched together would be considered partners for the coming year, commencing in March, and would last until the next February celebration.

If you are single on this day, remember it only lasts for 24-hours, and most of the people receiving Valentine’s tokens, gifts or flowers from their ‘loved ones’ are doing so out of obligation, threats, and the over-commercialization of a day that Hallmark rakes in the $$$- cha-ching!!! I am sure that by this time next year we will all be decorating our V-Day Trees ~ with hearts, flowers and cupids ~ while sitting on St. Valentine’s lap telling him what we want (or expect), fighting for the last box of chocolates or bunch of roses in the grocery store – knocking someone down in an effort to grab them out of their hands – all the while thinking LOVING thoughts.

Instead of focusing one day a year on love would it not be better to focus on sacred love all year round? Love for each other, love for our friends, love for our families, love for our enemies and love for those who we may not necessarily like. When we focus on love, we become love and the Beatles said it best “All You Need is Love”.