Page 6 - February 2023 Newsletter

The dark origins of Valentine's Day
The dark Origins of Around the same time, the Normans celebrated
Galatin's Day. Galatin meant "lover of women." That

Valentine's Day was likely confused with St. Valentine's Day at some
point, in part because they sound alike.

As the years went
Valentine's Day is a time to celebrate romance and love
and kissy-face fealty. But the origins of this festival of on, the holiday
grew sweeter.
candy and cupids are actually dark, bloody — and a bit
Chaucer and Shake-
muddled.
speare romanticized
Though no one has pinpointed the exact origin of the it in their work, and
holiday, one place to start is ancient Rome. it gained popularity
throughout Britain
and the rest of Eu-
The Romans' celebrations were violent
rope. Handmade
paper cards became
From Feb. 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of
the tokens du jour
Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then
in the Middle Ages.
whipped women with the hides of the animals they
had just slain.
Eventually, the tra-
dition made its way
The Roman romantics "were drunk. They were naked,"
to the New World.
Noel Lenski, now a religious studies professor at Yale William Shakespeare helped romanticize
The Industrial Rev-
University, told NPR in 2011. Young women would line Valentine's Day in his work, and it gained
up for the men to hit them, Lenski said. They believed olution ushered in popularity throughout Britain and the
factory-made cards
this would make them fertile. rest of Europe.
in the 19th century.
The brutal fete included a matchmaking lottery in And in 1913, Hall-
mark Cards of Kansas City, Mo., began mass-producing
which young men drew the names of women from a
jar. The couple would then be, um, coupled up for the valentines. February has not been the same since.
duration of the festival — or longer, if the match was
right. How we celebrate now

The ancient Romans may also be responsible for the Today, the holiday is big business. But that commercial-
name of our modern day of love. Emperor Claudius II ization has spoiled the day for many. Helen Fisher, a
executed two men — both named Valentine — on Feb. sociologist at Rutgers University, said we have only our-
14 of different years in the third century. Their martyr- selves to blame.
dom was honored by the Catholic Church with the cele-
bration of St. Valentine's Day. "This isn't a command performance," she said. "If peo-
ple didn't want to buy Hallmark cards, they would not
be bought, and Hallmark would go out of business."
As the holiday spread, it evolved
And so the celebration of Valentine's Day goes on, in
Later, Pope Gelasius I muddled things in the fifth centu-
varied ways. Many will break the bank buying jewelry
ry by combining St. Valentine's Day with Lupercalia to and flowers for their beloveds. Some will celebrate in a
expel the pagan rituals. But the festival was more of a
SAD (that's Singles Awareness Day) way, dining alone
theatrical interpretation of what it had once been.
and bingeing on self-gifted chocolates — while others
Lenski added, "It was a little more of a drunken revel, will find a way to make peace with singlehood in a soci-
but the Christians put clothes back on it. That didn't
ety that wants everyone to pa
stop it from being a day of fertility and love."