By Ava Cunningham
Today, Valentine’s Day is a day celebrated with hearts, chocolate, and flowers. But that is not at all how it used to be. You may have heard stories about Saint Valentine and Cupid but there are actually many different theories about how this holiday came about.
In the Catholic church, there are many stories of saints named Valentine but one, Priest Valentine may be where the idea comes from. This particular Valentine lived under the Roman Emperor Claudius II. When there was a war, Claudius made it illegal for young men to marry, saying that the single men were better soldiers. Valentine saw the injustice in this and wedded many young couples in secret; hence the tradition of Valentine’s day being a day of love.
Another story is of a man named Valentine who was imprisoned in a Roman prison. The girl he was in love with visited him regularly and before he died, he sent her a love letter. At the end of the letter he signed, “From your Valentine” which is still something people say today.
Others believe that it stemmed from a pagan festival called Lupercalia that the Christian church may have tried to Christianize by making the Feast of Saint Valentine around the same time. Lupercalia was a festival of fertility and agriculture that was celebrated near the middle of February. At this festival, people would gather in a cave to sacrifice a goat and a dog; meant to be for fertility and agriculture. Then they would take strips of the goats hide and gently slap young women. Everyone loved this because it was believed that this would make them more fertile in the year to come. Then women would put their names in a big pot and men would choose one. This was then your partner for the next year and more often than not, this couple would get married.
Now you may be asking, how did we get from slapping people with goat hides to exchanging chocolate and teddy bears? Well, in the 5th century Pope Gelasius named February 14th a day to celebrate Saint Valentine. However, the day was not considered a day of love until the Middle Ages. People at this time believed that February 14th was the start of a bird’s mating season and in 1375 it was first referred to as a day of love by the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. In the 1400s it became more common to exchange written Valentine greetings.
The holiday became more popular around the 17th century in Great Britain and by the 18th century, it became very common to exchange cards and small tokens with people. In the 1900s printing technology was much better and more people sent printed or already made cards (This was also helped by the fact that postage rates were cheaper). In America, the first person to mass produce Valentines cards in the 1840s and she is known as the “Mother of Valentine.” Valentine’s Day is one of the holidays when the most cards are sent; second only to Christmas.
