Ahhhh, February 14. Chocolates and flowers and romantic candlelit dinners and…animal sacrifice?
Every year around this time, the articles about the origins of Valentine’s Day pop up once again, and every year, some surprising and gruesome details pop up. Every year, I have more and more questions about this polarizing holiday.
Who exactly was St. Valentine? How have marketers commercialized February 14 to the extent that U.S. consumers spend over $20 billion each year on gifts? Why do we celebrate this day with images of a naked cherub holding a bow and arrow and the unrealistic expectation that we’ll be able to eat a sumptuous dinner and then…entertain our lovers all night while avoiding (or ignoring) gas and bad breath? Most importantly, who in their right mind dislikes conversation hearts (and why oh why did NECCO discontinue them?!)
In short, why is Valentine’s Day (and all the related fanfare) a thing?
Well, dear readers, I did a bit of Google sleuthing and this is what I found. Buckle up.
Valentine’s Day has many historical origins. Let’s start with St. Valentine himself. While popular culture depicts a single charming figure providing the inspiration for today’s annual celebration of love, there were, in fact, multiple St. Valentines. Apparently none of them were particularly romantic, but — as they do — people tell stories, and medieval folks looking for miracles and martyrdom told tales of the third-century Valentine, Valentinus, performing Christian marriages while being persecuted. In some of the stories he even fell in love while in prison. In any case, the legend of St. Valentine has been repeated through the ages and has been through several iterations.
Some scholars have suggested that Christians covered up the Roman festival Lupercalia, a gory celebration in which young men swung the skins of sacrificed animals at women in order to make them fertile, with Valentine’s Day, but this is debated. The Romans also created Cupid, who has his roots in the Greek God of love, Eros, the ripped child of Ares and Aphrodite. It’s unclear how Cupid evolved into the mischievous, chubby baby we know today.
Thousands of years later, Chaucer’s poem The Parliament of Fowls established February 14 as a day for lovers, describing birds gathering to select their mates, an avian practice that was believed to be common in 14th-century France and England. Subsequent writers (including Shakespeare) linked Valentine’s Day to romantic love.
In 1415, the Duke of Orléans wrote the first known valentine to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. In the U.S., Valentine’s Day cards didn’t become popular until the 18th century, and were increasingly commercialized thereafter. Esther Howland, “The Mother of the American Valentine,” went into business in Worcester, where she formed an assembly line with friends to craft lacy, sentimental cards. Her priciest products cost around $50, a fortune for the 1840s. Today, U.S. Americans send over $145 million worth of Valentine’s Day cards.
From the 1840s and on, advertising companies have jumped at the opportunity to package, bottle, and sell love. Astute marketers continue to peddle candies, flowers, and other products as must-haves in wooing lovers and demonstrating our affection for friends and family members. The clever advertising works! U.S. consumers spent $27.8 billion on Valentine’s Day gifts in 2020. Valentine’s Day has been exported to countries across the globe, where it is celebrated in myriad ways.
Beyond the typical presents of chocolates and jewelry, aspiring romantics can buy everything from preserved roses ($429) to proof of a star named after their beau ($39.95 if you want it to be extra bright) to their lover’s face on a potato (hey, at only $16.99 a spud, there is a great Valentine’s Day deal right now*). Sadly, the original conversation hearts by NECCO, which went out of business in 2018, are no longer available, although other companies have tried to follow in NECCO’s footsteps.
Valentine’s Day plays a significant role in popular culture, with its movie and television tropes about desperate singles, blind dates gone bad, and romantic grand gestures. With the extreme societal pressure to be both happily coupled and to make February 14 an extraordinary day, it’s no wonder there are anti-Valentine’s Day celebrations each year. Platonic, familial, and self love are worth celebrating, too. Indeed, love can and should be expressed in many ways throughout the year as such a complex, multi-faceted part of being human.
From tales of raucous Romans to mating lovebirds to savvy greeting card entrepreneurs, Valentine’s Day has a fascinating history and continues to evolve.
*This is not an advertisement or an endorsement.
