“Take my hand, take my whole life too, ‘cause I can’t help falling in love with you.” –Elvis Presley, “Can’t Help Falling in Love”
Love is characterized by intimacy, passion, and commitment; it signifies a set of emotions and behaviors distinguished by exhilaration and understanding. From the most blissful virtue to the deepest sentiment of affection, love encompasses a range of mental and emotional states. And as Valentine’s Day approaches, why not explore this day of love and its twisted, mysterious roots?
Valentine’s Day, the 14th of February every year, is a holiday synonymous with candy, flowers, gifts, and, above all, love. But who exactly was Saint Valentine, and how did he become the face—or rather, name—of this tradition?
This question holds no clear answer. The Roman Catholic Church no longer recognizes St. Valentine as a saint of the church due to a lack of reliable information about him, removing him from the General Roman Calendar in 1969. According to some accounts, St. Valentine was a Roman priest and physician, martyred by the emperor Claudius II Gothicus about 270 during the persecution of Christians. Pope Julius I reportedly built a basilica over St. Valentine’s grave on the Via Flaminia. On the other hand, stories claim that he was the bishop of Terni, Italy, who was martyred in Rome, with his relics later taken to Terni. Many churches around the world, in fact, claim to possess his relics. Legend states that to his jailer’s daughter, whom he had healed from blindness and befriended, St. Valentine signed a letter “from your Valentine.” Another legend asserts that St. Valentine secretly married couples to prevent husbands from being enlisted to serve in war, defying the emperor’s orders.
Like St. Valentine himself, the history of Valentine’s Day is enigmatic. Allegedly, Lupercalia, an antecedent of Valentine’s Day, was an ancient Roman fertility festival dedicated to the Roman god of agriculture, Faunas, and Roman founders Romulus and Remus that took place in mid-February. The rest of the story is disconcerting: the festival denoted an order of Roman priests running naked through the streets, using the blood-soaked hides of sacrificed animals to “gently slap” women, believing that the ritual promoted fertility. However, Pope Gelasius I outlawed Lupercalia in the late fifth century due to moral concerns—he viewed the sexual and fertility-related aspects of the pagan festival as vile and immoral. Pope Gelasius I declared the first Feast Day of St. Valentine on February 14th, intended to be a religious honoring of the martyr St. Valentine, in the year 496 AD. In this version, St. Valentine was a Roman clergyman who ministered to persecuted Christians by marrying them secretly. Some contend that this day was set to replace Lupercalia, which occurred from the 13th to the 15th.
Valentine’s Day only started resembling the modern romantic holiday in the Middle Ages. According to Jack B. Oruch, the late professor of English at the University of Kansas, poet Geoffrey Chaucer first connected love with St. Valentine in his 14th-century works “The Parliament of Fowls” and “The Complaint of Mars.” At the time of Chaucer’s writing, February 14th was considered the first day of spring as it was the beginning of the bird mating season. One of the verses of “The Parliament of Fowls,” a poem about birds choosing their mates, reads, “For this was on Saint Valentine’s Day,/ When every fowl comes there his mate to take.”
The 19th century saw the commencement of the commercialization of Valentine’s Day traditions. Richard Cadbury created the first heart-shaped box of chocolates in 1861, and the New England Confectionery Company (Necco) started stamping out an early version of Conversation Hearts.
Additionally, Valentine’s Day cards, advertised as a British fashion, gained popularity in America during the mid-19th century. In Britain, from 1835 to the 1840s, the number of Valentine’s Cards sent proliferated to the tens of thousands.
In 1847, Esther Howland, the daughter of a successful stationer and bookseller of the firm S.A. Howland & Sons, received her first English-style Valentine’s Card; she found it charming but also realized its business potential. She henceforth created a dozen Valentine’s designs using lace paper, paper flowers, and other supplies from England, Germany, and New York City. On his next trip for S.A. Howland & Sons, Esther’s brother Allen reluctantly agreed to take the card samples. He returned with $5,000 worth of orders, far exceeding Esther’s estimate of $200.
Thus commenced Esther’s Valentine’s business, fully launched by the end of 1849 with the perfection of her “assembly line” technique. Though Valentine’s Day cards had existed in the U.S. prior to Esther Howland, she is known to be the first to commercially distribute hand-decorated, English-style cards. By the early 1910s, an American company that would later become Hallmark began distributing its officially mass-produced “Valentine’s Day Cards”, and so began the Valentine’s Card tradition.
Ultimately, Valentine’s Day is, if anything, convoluted, with its putative pagan roots and quick commercialization. From a fertility ritual to a card-selling business, humanity has substantially romanticized this festival to transfigure it into today’s day of sweethearts. But come to think of it, the puzzling attribute of Valentine’s Day is a deserving complement to love’s own confoundment. Valentine’s Day may be confusing, but love itself is just as mystifying, anyway, so why not celebrate the day simply for the sake of love?
Whether in love or not, Valentine’s is the day to treat yourself: get yourself some flowers and some chocolate, and maybe for the desirous out there, you’ll find yourself a special Valentine.
