{"id":135,"date":"2014-01-15T16:46:08","date_gmt":"2014-01-15T16:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/loveisarose.wordpress.com\/?p=135"},"modified":"2021-11-24T16:27:57","modified_gmt":"2021-11-24T22:27:57","slug":"the-two-sides-of-monsieur-valentine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.loveisarose.com\/blog\/the-two-sides-of-monsieur-valentine\/","title":{"rendered":"The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A favorite complaint about Valentine\u2019s Day is that it is a \u201cmanufactured holiday,\u201d created by corporations interested in selling more greeting cards, chocolates, teddy bears, and all manner of pink, white, and red heart-shaped decorations. For the single and the non-celebratory, it is understandable that Valentine\u2019s day can rankle; is it a real holiday, after all? What\u2019s the point?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like many holidays, it is intended as a reminder. The routine of daily life distracts us from things that are important to us \u2013 the relationships and events and connections that define and enliven us. Religious holidays exist to remind us of our faith, while birthdays exist to remind us to celebrate our friends and family and their continued existence in our lives. Valentine\u2019s Day, of course, exists to remind us to honor and celebrate the love we share with a significant other. Romantic gestures can seem cheesy, but most people appreciate being shown that you care about them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, Valentine\u2019s Day wasn\u2019t always that way \u2013 its origins are far stranger, and at times, darker than the holiday we experience today. Yes, that\u2019s right \u2013 Valentine\u2019s Day didn\u2019t spring into being the day Hallmark realized it could make obscene amounts of cash off its greeting cards. The holiday dates back hundreds of years, in fact, to the days of ancient Rome\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Valentine's<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

There Ain\u2019t No Party Like a Roman Party<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Romans had a lot of holidays. At the height of the Empire\u2019s prosperity, festivals, celebrations, and other opportunities took up nearly half the days of the year. Often, holidays lasted several days, as was the case with Lupercalia. A holiday intended to ward off evil spirits and purify the city by encouraging health and fertility, Lupercalia \u2013 celebrated in mid-February \u2013 could get a little crazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The celebrants were nude and often drunk (already starting to sound like Valentine\u2019s?). The men sacrificed a goat and a dog (as you do on occasion), and then used the hide of these freshly slain animals to whip the women. Women believed that participation in the festival made the more fertile, and the festival was something of a spring fertility celebration, which you can see all around the world in a number of cultures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lupercalia continued to be celebrated for some time. Meanwhile, in the 3rd century A.D., Emperor Claudius II executed two men named Valentine on February 14th; those men were considered martyrs by the early Church. By the 5th century, the situation was a little better for Christians, and Pope Gleasius I created St. Valentine\u2019s Day by merging it with the Lupercalia celebration; the idea was to overwrite and eventually abolish pagan celebrations by replacing them with Christian holidays. Lupercalia traditions continued, the Christians, at least, wore clothes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Valentine\u2019s Day Gets Some Class<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The middle ages brought with it Chaucer and later Shakespeare, both of whom wrote about Valentine\u2019s Day and the traditions associated with it. Rather than depicting Valentine\u2019s Day as an occasion for celebration and debauchery, they romanticized the day as one of love and beauty. This view of the holiday spread throughout the continent, and soon tokens of love and affection became common for Valentine\u2019s Day\u2026 like the gifting of handmade paper cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Valentines<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward several centuries, and the advent of industrialized manufacturing allowed these paper cards to be produced en masse so that everyone could easily celebrate Valentine\u2019s Day, rather than taking the time out of their incredibly long work days \u2013 this was before organized labor and government regulations, mind you! \u2013 to craft a paper card themselves. Later, in 1913, Hallmark Cards began manufacturing valentines, and now we have our multi-billion dollar, global Valentine\u2019s Day industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next time someone calls Valentine\u2019s Day out as phony, remember this little history lesson: Valentine\u2019s Day started as a naked, drunken festival centuries ago, was praised by the great poets and writers of England in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and only became a little more\u2026 polished, shall we say?\u2026 in the 19th and 20th centuries. It\u2019s a holiday with a long and storied history, and it has evolved with our needs and interests. Everyone needs love, after all, and sometimes we have to be reminded of that love. Fortunately, you aren\u2019t limited to paper cards anymore. There are a million and one ways to show your affection to someone on Valentine\u2019s Day, and most don\u2019t even need an animal hide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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