Although Valentine’s Day has come and gone, I am still left contemplating what it is really about. Is it those little cards that we use to exchange? Is it roses? Or is it love?Valentine’s Day itself began in Roman times, when February 14 was a holiday to honor Juno, the goddess of women and marriage.
Claudius the Cruel was having a heck of a time getting soldiers to join his military and decided to cancel all marriages and engagements in Rome because he thought the men did not want to leave their loved ones.
Saint Valentine and Saint Marius secretly married couples and were condemned to be beaten and decapitated for disobeying Claudius II.
While in prison, before his death, St. Valentine was visited by many people who believed in love, and one of them was the blind daughter of the prison guard.
On the day of his death, St. Valentine left her a note signed, “Love from your Valentine.”
Another ancestor of Valentine’s Day is the feast of Lupercalia, celebrated mid-February, where the names of young women were placed in a box and young men would draw from the box.
So these are the origins of the holiday, but why is it still celebrated? Of course children love it for the cards to be exchanged and the candy. Adults seem to have lost the meaning somewhere between 270 A.D. and present day.
I do not know one person who takes this holiday, if you can call it that, seriously. It is a wonderful idea to remember the ones we love on this day, but more and more I find myself a little more bitter each year. (Maybe because I never get anything!)
At least I still believe in love and the magic it brings into the world. So Valentine’s Day isn’t that bad after all. It’s about love, that stuff that makes the world go ’round.