Valentines Day

Posted by: whitephosphorous on: February 14, 2007

• In: Events and Celebrations | Issues
• 19 Comments

No, This post is not one of those glorifying Valentines Day. I am tired of all the hype surrounding it. Some may think I am naïve, yet others may call me a fundamentalist, but I have reached the point of no return when it comes to the hype surrounding Valentines Day. Enough of those stupid red balloons and cupid’s posters. 

Here is a brief account of St Valentine and how this practice came into being. Valentine’s Day started in the time of the Roman Empire. In ancient Rome, February 14th was a holiday to honor Juno. Juno was the Queen of the Roman Gods and Goddesses. The Romans also knew her as the Goddess of women and marriage. The following day, February 15th, began the Feast of Lupercalia. The lives of young boys and girls were strictly separate. However, one of the customs of the young people was name drawing. On the eve of the festival of Lupercalia the names of Roman girls were written on slips of paper and placed into jars. Each young man would draw a girl’s name from the jar and would then be partners for the duration of the festival with the girl whom he chose. Sometimes the pairing of the children lasted an entire year, and often, they would fall in love and would later marry.

 Under the rule of Emperor Claudius II Rome was involved in many bloody and unpopular campaigns. Claudius the Cruel was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues. He believed that the reason was that roman men did not want to leave their loves or families. As a result, Claudius cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome. T

he good Saint Valentine was a priest at Rome in the days of Claudius II. He and Saint Marius aided the Christian martyrs and secretly married couples, and for this kind deed Saint Valentine was apprehended and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. He suffered martyrdom on the 14th day of February, about the year 270.

At that time it was the custom in Rome, a very ancient custom, indeed, to celebrate in the month of February the Lupercalia, feasts in honor of a heathen god. On these occasions, amidst a variety of pagan ceremonies, the names of young women were placed in a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed.

The pastors of the early Christian Church in Rome endeavored to do away with the pagan element in these feasts by substituting the names of saints for those of maidens. And as the Lupercalia began about the middle of February, the pastors appear to have chosen Saint Valentine’s Day for the celebration of this new feast. So it seems that the custom of young men choosing maidens for valentines, or saints as patrons for the coming year, arose in this way.

And, why is Valentines’ Day celebrated in the West? Legend says it is in honor of St Valentine who performed secret marriages for Roman Soldiers who were forbidden to marry. So if they are doing it in honor of someone who did a service to them, why, pray, are we copying them blindly? As far as I am aware, no king in the history of India ever forbade his soldiers to marry.

Personally, I do not think that you need a special day in a year to tell someone, not just exclusively your girl / boy friend that you love them. I feel that it leads to a lot of pretence on both sides, and is not an honest platform to declare their love for each other. 

And teenagers are the easiest to fall a prey to the sidey advertisement tactics of businesses benefited by this hype. If not for Valentines, why would anyone buy a single rose for something like 200 Rupees? From where is this money flowing into their hands? Will no one question them? Don’t we as responsible elders have a responsibilty of ensuring that our children are under proper care and guidance regarding spending money?

Time we stopped this blind “monkey-see, monkey-do” copy from the west.