The bloody history of Valentine’s Day

Posted by Brynne Formato at 12:00 pm 708 Comments Print

February 14 usually conjures up images of love, chocolates and roses. However, Valentine’s Day legends include tales of imprisonment, death and pagan rituals.

Most Fairfield students want to stick to the usual celebration.

“For Valentine’s Day, I want to let my special someone know exactly how much I appreciate her and what she means to me,” said Bill Armstrong ’05. “I try to remember special memories that we have together and bring them back, perhaps a candlelight dinner with the food that we have eaten on past dates, music from a concert we’ve seen together, or even (gulp) watch a chick flick.”

According to The History Channel’s website, www.historychannel.com, both the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia and a martyred saint named Valentine or Valentinus were the original moldings of our modern day Valentine’s Day.

Lupercalia celebrates the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, as well as the Roman god of agriculture, Faunus. Since Romulus and Remus were raised by a wolf (lupa) as infants, this festival involved a group of priests called the Luperci sacrificing a goat, forming strips out of its hide and running around Rome lightly smacking young Roman women with the hides dipped in blood.

The women believed being hit with these strips promised increasing fertility. According to the same legend, the festival included a match making session when women would enter their names into a bucket and young men would draw their potential partner.

The matches made could eventually become marriages, according to another legend. In the third century, Roman Emperor Claudius II prohibited marriage for young men, whom he believed would be better off serving in his army. Saint Valentine defied the law and performed clandestine marriage ceremonies for you lovers. His actions were either found out and he was sentenced to death, or he was helping Christians escape from brutal Roman prisons that were more like torture camps.

Either way, while he was in jail for whatever reason, Valentine is believed to have sent the first “Valentine.” Some say it was to a girl he fell in love with, presumably the daughter of his jailer. The card was signed “from your Valentine,” a phrase that has been eternalized in billions of Hallmark cards over the years.

So now that women aren’t being smacked with blood dripping goat hides and men have the right to marry whomever, whenever they want, how do modern day kids feel about Valentine’s Day over eight hundred years later?

“I’ve never liked Valentine’s Day,” said Amanda St. Pierre ’05. “I think it’s somewhat depressing and overrated. If I don’t have a decent Valentine, I’ll pass. I mean what do chocolates and flowers really mean anyways?”

“Valentine’s Day is nice when you have a boyfriend, but if you don’t it pretty much sucks,” said Liz Curtis ’05. “My friends without boyfriends get really depressed on Valentine’s Day.”

Although this holiday may have originated with secret love and Roman festivals, many people see Valentine’s Day as a purely commercial holiday. According to the American Greeting Card Association, over one billion cards are sent on Valentine’s Day, making this holiday only second to Christmas.

“I think Valentine’s Day is a holiday that is created by Hallmark,” said Jess Dubuss ’05. “But it is fun to celebrate when I have a boyfriend.”

Campus Life