The Joys & Pitfalls of Valentine's Day

So Valentine’s Day is here – it’s quite evident. You can hardly miss the men scrounging around a card store looking for anything really – a card that simply says “I love you” or what not. You can’t walk into the local bookstore & run into your MA advisor who is, of course, searching for a Valentine’s Day card for his wife & a birthday card for his son. Then he tells me the bookstore doesn’t have much of a selection & I remind him, slightly sarcastically, that he is in a bookstore. Then I go to the card store to find a birthday card – EVERYONE is packed into the little place. Most of the occupants? Guys. Surprisingly, there are but 3 people in the chocolate store – all women. And of course, we mustn’t forget the guys walking around with flowers in their hands. Really guys … let’s be original. Make a card; make some flowers (which can be done with Hershey kisses).

But why do we do this? Who designated my birthday month as the month for romance & kisses & crap? I mean really! Do we need a day that makes you tell someone you love them? Shouldn’t you do that every day? Valentine’s Day is expected & then when you forget or fail to pick up something, what do you get? Yelled at, of course. So, for those of you who have bought into the commercialization of the day & have no clue what you are celebrating, I’m here to help. Consider it my token of “love” to you.

So there was this guy named Valentine (hopefully you figured this one out yourself). He is sainted. He dates back to Christian & ancient Roman tradition. (Random fact: The Catholic Church recognizes at least 3 different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred.) As with any good saint, we need a few legends.

First: Valentine was a priest who served Rome in the 3rd century. Emperor Claudius II outlawed marriage for young men because he decided that single men made better soldiers (makes sense since they do not have wives & families to care for, but maybe he did it because he knew they would die in battle & well, you don’t have to pay as much to the family if there is none, right?). Anyway, Valentine got upset, defied the Emperor by performing marriages for young lovers in secret, the Emperor finds out & orders him put to death.

Second: Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape Roman prisons where they were beaten and tortured.

Third: Valentine sent the first “valentine” greeting to a young girl – the jailor’s daughter – whom he fell in love with while imprisoned. Before he died, he supposedly wrote a letter and signed “From your Valentine.” (Yes, let’s all ooh & aah & say how romantic.)

So we've got the legend out of the way. Why February of all months to pick to honor this guy?

The Christians: Well, some believe that the middle of February is the anniversary of Valentine’s death or burial, circa 270 A.D.

The Pagans: It can be argued that the Church loves to change pagan holidays into their own in order to Christianize conquered peoples. The pagan festival of Lupercalia (Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar begins with this feast before the whole Ides of March stuff happened and knocked off Caesar) fell during the ides of February (i.e. February 15) which noted the official beginning of spring and called for purification. Lupercalia is actually a fertility festival dedicated to Romulus & Remus (the Roman founders raised by wolves) & to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture (because it’s spring). In JC, Caesar’s wife Calpurnia hopes to be touched by Antony as he runs through the streets because she will become fertile if touched by a bloodied sacrificial strip of goat’s hide. (Yes, the Romans were a strange bunch.) After all this running took place, the young women paired with a bachelor for a year through a lottery, which typically ended in marriage.

The Pope: Around 498 A.D. Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine’s Day and the Roman “marriage lottery” system was outlawed because it was considered un-Christian.

The French & English: They believed that February 14 was the beginning of birds’ mating season, hence romance. (Frankly, I don't agree. First, it's still cold. Second, the wind blows me all over the place, so how can 2 birds sit in a tree long enough to profess love to one another without being blown away? After all, I weigh more than they.)

The first recorded association of V-Day with romantic love is with my good friend Geoffrey Chaucer (yes, the dude who wrote The Canterbury Tales). In Parlement of Foules (1382), he references V-Day with birds picking mates in this poem honoring the 1st anniversary of engagement of King Richard II of English to Anne of Bohemia.

The oldest Valentine still survives in the British Library in London. It is a poem written by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt, 1415.

Several years later, King Henry V supposedly hired writer John Lydgate to write a valentine note to Catherine of Valois (I’m beginning to see elements of Cyrano de Bergerac here).

Britain began celebrating V-Day in the 17th century but it got really popular in the Victorian time period when they went all out with making cards. You can thank the USA for the commercialization of the holiday (same with Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and every other holiday known to man).

So that's V-Day in a nutshell. But what about all this gift-giving? I must question the sincerity which we send these gifts. Do we feel obligated to go out & buy massive amounts of chocolates or over the top floweral arrangements? Do women, or men, even want these? After all, the chocolates will get eaten & make you fat while the flowers will die in a fortnight. And what about those who don’t have significant others? All this lovey-dovey jumbo only grates on their nerves & cause significant depression (did you know many suicides happen around Christmas & Valentine's Day? Makes you think .....). V-Day only highlights the people who don’t have spouses or boy/girlfriends. Hence, the creation of Girls’ Night In or Boys’ Night Out when the opposite sex is forbidden to intrude. The girls watch girly movies while eating ice cream & the boys go out to the pub. But then you have to ask why do the girls choose to stay in & watch movies when there is a whole bar full of single guys seemingly in need of a girlfriend? Hello! The answer stares you in the face! The single guys aren’t the only ones at the bars (at least not here in Swansea). You’ll find couples sucking face, getting completely & utterly trashed, & doing who knows what else in public.

And what right in the head, single, respectable female wants to see this? Not me, thank you. Or my female friends. We’ll stick to watching our sappy girly movies while we drool over Colin Firth in Pride & Prejudice & dream of our own Mr. Darcy. Or maybe we'll critique fairytales (thank you Mr. Disney) & the crap we have been raised on with the handsome prince coming to rescue us from our evil stepmothers. I don't need a guy, let alone a prince, to rescue me or buy my chocolates. I’ll do that myself … & at least I'll get the chocolate that I like. And remember the previous poem I posted where the prince turns back into a frog?

So now you know why I think Valentine's Day is overrated & completely & utterly unnecessary. Maybe you will realize just why exactly you choose to celebrate, or not, a holiday that has become as commercialized & over the top as Christmas. No longer are we showing true feelings but seeing who can get the biggest & best present & spend the most money.

Random & Interesting Facts About V-Day
• In 1835, the remains of St. Valentine were given to an Irish priest named Father John Spratt by Pope Gregory CVI, after Spratt impressed the Pope with his passionate preaching during a visit to Rome. The gift, in a black and gold casket, can still be viewed every Valentine’s Day at the Whitefriar Street Church in Dublin, Ireland.

• In 1969, the Church removed St. Valentine’s Day as an official holiday from its calendar. Feb. 14 is now the feast day for Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius.

• In the 1980s, the diamond industry began to promote V-Day as an occasion for giving jewelry (preferably expensive engagement rings).

• According to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated one billion valentine cards are sent each year, making Valentine's Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year. (Approximately 2.6 billion cards are sent for Christmas.)

• 85% of all valentines are purchased by women. (Of course this is because guys fail to remember what day V-Day falls on despite all the mass advertising & reminders everywhere.)

• V-Day is celebrated by the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the UK, France, and Australia.

• In Japan & Korea, women give candy, chocolate, or flowers to people they like, becoming an obligation for many women.

• In Persian culture (Iran), V-Day is discreetly celebrated by most lovers despite disapproval by the government.