Is Valentine’s Day an invention of greeting card companies or the feast day of a real saint? The true origins of Valentine’s Day are murky at best. Among scholars, theories abound as to what, or who started this ancient holiday. Here are a few of the most popular thoughts.
Cupid, the iconic figure often associated with Valentine’s Day, is actually an ancient Roman God. According to the legend, he is the child of Mercury (the messenger god with wings), and Venus (the god of love). He is usually represented as a winged baby carrying a bow and arrow, sometimes wearing armor. Some say that the armor stands for the strength of love, and others argue that the armor is a comment on the thin line between love and war. Either way, when Cupid’s arrow finds its mark, love blooms!
Some say the roots of Valentine’s Day lie in ancient Rome. A pagan feast called Lupercalia was celebrated by the Romans on February 15th. This holiday honored the fertility God Faunus as well as the gods believed to have founded Rome: Romulus and Remus. On this day, after animal sacrifices were made, single women’s names were placed in an urn and bachelors each drew a name. The matched couples were then paired for the following year. This went on for about eight-hundred years before a Pope replaced this with the feast day of St. Valentine around 498 AD.
Was there really a saint named Valentine? Yes, but there were several! According to AmericanCatholic.org, the historical record for St. Valentine is so nebulous that his feast day was removed from the Church’s official Saint Calendar in 1969. Three of the most likely candidates were all priests named Valentine. One Valentine was known for helping persecuted Christians during the reign of Claudius the Second and was executed on February 14th. Another Father Valentine married couples in secret when marriage was forbidden by the Roman Empire. The third Valentine wrote a letter to his jailer’s daughter while in prison, signing it “from your Valentine,” possibly starting the trend of using this expression.
Handwritten sentiments given to loved ones began sometime in the 1400s. One legend says that the first Valentine card was sent by the Duke of Orleans to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1415. Later, in England, the Victorians took Valentine greetings to a whole new level. In the nineteenth century, Victorians bought or created complicated Valentine cards with pull-tabs, moveable parts and some even had pockets to include a lock of the sender’s hair! Meanwhile, in America, Esther A Howland became known as the “Mother of the Valentine” when she began creating the first mass-produced handmade Valentine cards in the 1840’s. Hallmark got into the game when they began printing and selling Valentine’s Day cards in 1916, a smart move since Valentine’s Day is the second biggest holiday for giving cards after Christmas. About 142 million cards are exchanged on Valentine’s Day, not including those little ones kids give each other at school. Valentine’s Day isn’t celebrated worldwide. It is popular in Canada, Mexico, France, and Australia in addition to the US and Britain.
No matter how Valentine’s Day became what it is today, February 14th is a great opportunity to let others know how much you love them, whether through a greeting card, gift or loving gesture.
Tiffany Doerr Guerzon is a freelance writer who contributes to a variety of regional and national publications.
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