The Curious History of Valentine’s Day and How to Keep its Spirit Alive in Lockdown by Emily Gough

Every year, retailers and businesses scramble to pull away the New Year’s glitter and replace it with pink confetti and cardboard hearts in time for Valentine’s Day. Millions of flowers are bought and sold, tonnes of boxes of chocolates are eaten, and enough cards are exchanged to rival the amount seen at Christmas. If you’re really lucky, you might even get a kiss or two.

However, Valentine’s Day wasn’t always the fluffy, pink-tinted hellscape it is today, and in fact, it reaches back thousands and thousands of years to our dear old Roman ancestors.

Like most popular holidays, Valentine’s Day is thought to have roots in Paganism and the Lupercalia festival, which celebrated spring, fertility, the Roman God of agriculture, and the Roman founders. Naturally, it involved feasting, ritual sacrifices, sex, and varying degrees of nakedness, and there was also said to be a ceremony in which a single man would pluck a woman’s name from an urn and, ah, pair off with them. Surprisingly, this odd game of ye olde dating bingo only fell out of tradition in the past century or so.

Despite the overall air of chaos, the festival was ultimately centred on growth. Festival goers hoped to ward off infertility and welcome procreation, birth, and new life, with women in particular looking forward to the festival each year.

The Lupercalia festival was eventually banned by the Christian Church, and it was declared that February 14th would instead become St. Valentine’s Day, a holiday dedicated to smaller tokens of love and, of course, a saint. But, despite having an entire day named after him, the true identity of St. Valentine remains shrouded in the foggy veils of time and mystery. Historians have managed to narrow their options down to three men, all of whom were martyred but remain as symbols of ‘sympathy, heroism, and […] romance’ nonetheless. Candidates include one man who married Christian couples in secret, and another who sent a love letter from his jail cell to his jailer’s daughter shorty before he was executed, signed ‘from your Valentine’.

Regardless of which man was the true Valentine, a tradition was born from this last act of love. Now, cards are written, anonymous letters of admiration are slipped into the post, little notes are passed back and forth, all signed from our very own Valentines.

Over time, Valentine’s Day has evolved as our attitudes and appetites have, adapting to become a widespread and commercialised event that is not necessarily tied down to religious practice. It now dominates just about everything, from TV shows to the shape of our crumpets, but there is still an inherent sweetness that runs beneath all the glamour, a romance that has, quite literally, stood the test of time around the globe.

In Denmark, for example, lovers exchange pressed white flowers on Valentine’s day instead of roses, and in Wales, they exchange intricately decorated wooden spoons, known as love spoons, on January 25th to celebrate their own patron saint of love, St. Dwynwen. Brazilians celebrate Dia dos Namorados, or Lover’s Day, on June 12th, where gifts are exchanged with lovers and friends alike.

In South Korea, Valentine’s celebrations are spaced out across three months: February 14th is reserved for women to give gifts to their partners, March 14th, or White Day, is for men to return the favour, and April 14th is for those without a Valentine’s. Known fittingly as Black Day, it is traditional to eat a bowl of black noodles made with black bean paste in mourning for their love lives.

Overall, it is a time that many look forward to, but Valentine’s Day this year will be unlike any other. With Covid-19 still raging and the UK under lockdown again, it is unlikely that we will be exchanging much of anything (but if you are going to gift outside of your household, please be careful and abide by the social distancing rules, wash your hands, and for everybody’s sake wear a mask).

So, when Valentine’s Day as we know it is no longer an option, how do we keep its spirit alive?

Well, whilst your romantic endeavours might be a little stunted this year, or written off altogether, that doesn’t mean that you can’t be a long-distance romantic, and that certainly doesn’t mean you can’t show yourself a little romance.

Light some candles, cook with your partner or your housemates, or by yourself and revel in your own company. Cobble together some semblance of that fancy meal you’re missing out on by not going out and take the time to enjoy watching it all come together. Call your friends and share a drink over zoom. Check in with your family members and that little old couple down the road. Support one another.

Slow dance around the kitchen, even if you are alone. Sit down and catch up on that TV show you’ve been meaning to watch or get stuck into that book that has been waiting for you on your bookshelf. Buy yourself some overpriced flowers on a whim, or a massive box of chocolates – indulge in the red and white fluffy nonsense that clothing shops and supermarkets and the internet are trying to sell you. Better yet, support smaller businesses by buying yourself something handmade and special and solely for you. Relax, draw yourself a bubble bath, smile at yourself in the mirror. Be your own Valentine!

Valentine’s Day doesn’t need to be a big event that you can plaster pictures of all over the internet. It is simply a day for us to show our capacity for care, for love, and for new beginnings, things that we need now more than ever. With spirits so low, and the future still looking so uncertain, what better time to reinforce our efforts to make this year better and safer, to plant little seeds of love, than Valentine’s Day?

SOURCES:

BRITANNICA. 2020. ‘Valentine’s Day’. Britannica [online]. 4 December 2020. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Valentines-Day [accessed 1 February 2021].

HISTORY. 2009. ‘History of Valentine’s Day – Facts, Origins & Traditions’. History [online]. 22 December 2009. Available at: https://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day/history-of-valentines-day-2 [accessed 1 February 2021].

HISTORY. 2017. ‘Lupercalia’. History [online]. 13 December 2017. Available at: https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-rome/lupercalia#section_4 [accessed 1 February 2021].

HISTORY. 2009. ‘Easter – Dates, Easter Eggs & Easter Bunny’. History [online]. 27 October 2009. Available at: https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/history-of-easter [accessed 6 February 2021].

HUFFPOST. 2016. ‘10 Valentine's Day Traditions All Around the World’. Huffpost [online]. February 2016. Available at: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/10-valentines-day-traditi_b_9190888 [accessed 6 February 2021].

Words by Emily Gough

Edited by Caitlin Lydon