An Ode to Valentine’s Day

All tackiness aside, February 14 has evolved into a celebration of my top favorite things: love, sex and romance.

It is finally the most wonderful time of the year! With hearts, chocolates, and roses at every turn, it seems like the only colors that exist are red, pink and white. In addition to these festivities, there is a flying cherub parading around with a bow and arrow.

Ah yes, it is almost Valentine’s Day. I am part of the minority who treats this holiday like Christmas and their birthday all wrapped in one. My bedroom looks like I am celebrating Valentine’s Day 365 days out of the year — which surely I am. As I am writing this article, the 1996 hit “Lovefool” by the Cardigans is playing in the background. While I don’t expect other people to love this holiday as much as I do, I think there needs to be a better understanding and appreciation of February 14. Where did this day of celebrating love and romance come from, and why should we embrace it?

The History of Valentine’s Day is filled with apocryphal origin stories. We understand the holiday carries Christian and Ancient Roman tradition. It is believed that Valentine’s Day was celebrated on February 14 because the Christian Church wanted to “Christianize” and replace the Pagan fertility festival on February 15 known as Lupercalia. The festival consisted of animal sacrifice, sex rituals, slapping women with strips of bloody goat skins to grant them fertility and putting the names of young women in the city in a large urn. Single men would choose a name from the urn and be paired with that woman for a year, sometimes ending in marriage. Since the Christian Church disapproved of public eroticism and sexuality, Lupercalia was outlawed at the end of the fifth century and declared February 14 as St. Valentine’s Day. 

The Christian Church recognizes three martyred saints under the name Valentine. The most popular saint served during third century Rome. Emperor Claudius II believed that men were dodging the draft by getting married, so he outlawed marriage to ensure a strong army. Viewing this act as an injustice, St. Valentine performed marriages for young lovers in secret. When Claudius II found out, St. Valentine was put in prison and ordered to death. While awaiting execution, he received letters and flowers from young lovers thanking him for his service. During his sentence, it is rumored that St. Valentine fell in love with his jail keeper's daughter. He wrote her a letter signed, “From Your Valentine.” St. Valentine was put to death on February 14, 269 A.D., marking the feast of an advocate of love. 

History.com claims that “The English poet Geoffrey Chaucer was the first to record St. Valentine’s Day as a day of romantic celebration in his 1375 poem ‘Parliament of Foules,’ writing, ‘For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne’s day / Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.’” 

By the mid-18th century, the exchange of gifts and notes between lovers presented as a token of affection became a common practice. Thanks to the printing technology in the 1900s, readily made Valentine’s Day cards began to replace written letters. A few decades later, the world declared Valentine’s Day a Hallmark holiday associated with tacky love songs and romantic comedies. All tackiness aside, February 14 has evolved into a celebration of my top favorite things: love, sex, and romance.

There are plenty of people who believe this holiday is simply the worst. They would rather wallow in being single, unwilling to subscribe to the fact that it’s a billion-dollar industry or worst of all, think that romance is dead. To that I say: you will not be single forever. There are plenty of creative ways to celebrate without participating in commercialism, and if romance is really dead, maybe it’s time to revive it.

I, hence, challenge you, whoever is reading this to listen to “I Only Have Eyes for You” by The Flamingos, watch the 1957 film “An Affair to Remember,” and lay rose petals on your bed for the pleasure of yourself and/or your lover. Rejoice in the fact that we can openly love and be loved. In the words of Leo Tolstoy, “Everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love.”

Email your questions and mattters of the heart to our Sex & Love columnist at ariana.giordano1@marist.edu.