HISTORY OF VALENTINE’S DAY
Epic Valentine’s day is celebrated as the day of love, affection and romance worldwide. Everything you see or read has a history behind it. Almost everything has a history indicating its origin or formation .
Likewise, festivals are needed for human being to give them relief from their daily rigid lifestyle. But, We celebrate some special-kinda festivals or you know, holidays, to enjoy that particular day to remind something.
There you go for the epic Valentine’s Day ; the day of love and romance , which is celebrated world wide on 14th Feb on every year. The history of Valentine’s Day was started from the Romance era in England during the 3rd century.
It is also called as Saint Valentine’s Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine’s Day .
HISTORY BEHIND ORIGIN OF VALENTINE’S DAY :
History is always a mystery. Whenever you talk about history it is incomplete to describe anything apart from or not related to a king. Likewise, the history of Valentine’s Day is also associated with a Roman devilish king Emperor Claudius II Gothicus.
One day a super surprising thought stroked in the Emperor’s mind that unmarried soldiers of his army were more powerful and profitable than of married soldiers who had wives and children. This might be happened or somewhere true that unmarried men were better soldiers than married as they were free from materialistic things.
But of course It was unfair to take lawful step against personal life of the tenants. The king , Claudius II out-lord marriage for young men during his session. This lugubrious order from ruler just broke the heart of the men.
Such a consecutive period brought a quixotic , golden-hearted person named Saint Valentine of Terni into human life. St. Valentine was the Messiah for the lovers or you can call him as the “love guru” of this decade. Beyond from the king’s eye , he executed secret marriages of couples to cherish love between them.
But how far he would go from the king’s eye ? One day he caught by the king and imprisoned for a short period.
Therein the jail according to the myth Valentine was taken care by the jailer’s daughter. Although she was blind , she felt affection of Valentine towards herself. The jailer’s daughter was so humble towards the Valentine that she wanted him to be free and make sacred deeds.
So, he served food to him. Saint Valentine also loved her so he wrote a letter to her before he died. The letter was only written that signed ‘From your Valentine‘. Then as per the king’s order , Saint Valentine was beheaded on 14th Feb, 270 AD.
This despatcher made him popular over the country. Therefore to remember him on his Martyrdom day the couple of Rome celebrate this special day of love, affection and romance. It was also believed that the history of Valentine’s day was related to 2-3 different Saint who’s name were Valentine or Valentinus. They were all martyred by the ruler during 3rd century AD.
Besides that some other historians believed that Saint Valentine , the kind hearted man, helped the Christians to rescue them from the roman prisons , where they were inordinately tortured and bitten.
That might be one reason why the king beheaded Saint Valentine . However, Saint Valentine was a fortunate envoy of almighty who taught the world the words of kindness, humanism and love.
According to some other Roman historians , this Valentine’s day was celebrated in Rome as a fertility festival called as ‘Lupercalia‘ which has dedicated to the God of Roman agriculture , Faunus. This festival was done by sacrificing goat for fertility and Dog for purification.
As it was the starting time of spring , basically dating time for birds so as human’s , the festival also helped the young men to choose their mates by lottery system. They had to pair with the girl whom they choose only by specific lottery system and that pair of an ended in the bonding of marriage.
The king Gelasius I, in the 5th century replaced Lupercalia with Valentine’s day and afterward it is popularly celebrated as Valentine’s day but both for fertility and love in England.
THE GOD OF LOVE : CUPID
Who knows about Valentine’s must see a Valentine card somewhere. If you just look down Valentine’s day cards , a half naked boy pointing his arrows towards lovers (Human beings) must capture your eyes on him.
He is Cupid , the roman God of love, affection, attraction and desire. It was a baby in the cards because most often babies are the combination of two people in Love.
To represent love, the God of love, Cupid , symbolized on the Valentine’s day cards. He is also known as ‘Amor(Love)’ in Latin Mythology and ‘Eros’ in Greek mythology.
LANDMARKS OF CELEBRATION OF VALENTAIN’S DAY :
Pope Gelasius I ended Lupercalia festival by the 5th century AD and allowed to celebrate Valentine’s day all over the country. But it became more popular when it was compared to another Norman festival ‘Galatin’s Day’, that was also refers to ‘Lover of Women‘ . Both the festival seemed to be alike so, the more confusion, the more popular among the mass.
Then world’s most beloved poets like Geoffrey Chaucer and Shakespeare romanticized Valentine’s day with their warm-hearted poems and gained grandeur throughout Britain and Europe. The history of Valentine’s day stated that it was first celebrated in Rome in the year 268 AD. But present days it is celebrated in every corner of the world gracefully.
HOW VALENTINE’S DAY CELEBRATED IN TODAY’S WORLD :
You will be surprised to know that almost 16 countries like :
- USA
- GREAT BRITAIN
- CANADA
- U.K
- AUSTRALIA
- ARGENTINA
- FRANCE
- MEXICO
- SOUTH KOREA
- PHILIPPINES
- INDIA
Etc. celebrated Valentine’s day in a very glossing way. During the 17th century it became more admiring festival in Great Britain. Before that , in the middle ages of 5th-20th century , the Romans and Britishers celebrated this occasion by giving hand-made cards or something hand made things as a token of love to their beloved one. Some great lovers also wrote poems for their like Charles , Duke of Orleans in 1415 AD.
Everything is changing with the flow of the time, so as the festivals and holidays. Beyond of couples, Valentine’s day is also celebrated among the family , friends and admiring persons as a festival of exchanging affection and love towards someone.
To show their love and affection, they exchange Valentine’s day cards, Valentine’s day gifts, Valentine’s day massages through mobile phone to each other. With the spreaded time, the history of Valentine’s day also speaks that this day was celebrated as a single festival day for love in old days.
But, in 20th century the romantic couples observe a week called ‘ Valentine’s week‘ before 14th Feb.
Each day of Valentine’s week contains some intensions like as you know it starts with Feb-7 as Rose Day, Then in a serial form like Feb-8 as Propose day,Feb-9 as Chocolate Day, Feb-10 as Teddy Day, Feb-11 as Promise Day, Feb-12 as Hug Day, Feb-13 as Kiss Day and then finally Feb-14 as Valentine’s day.
Young couple celebrate whole week to express their love, affection and romance. Red roses are the center of attraction on Valentine’s day along with gifts , candy, jewelries.
VALENTINE’S DAY :MISCONCEPTION OF LOVE IN TODAY’S REALITY
The history of Valentine’s day discovered the black truth of Saint Valentine, how he sacrifice his life for the shake of true love. The main purpose of this day was to remember his sacrifices, virtue deeds to glorify true love.
But, unfortunately during the recent period the meaning of Valentine’s day is totally accepted in a wrong way by some couples. They tent to materialistic things than off pure love, affection and dedication.
Therefore, the Valentine’s day is not accepted in many countries like Pakistan and Indonesia and many religions like Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism.
FAMOUS VALENTINE’S DAY FROM BUSINESS POINT OF VIEW :
The growth in human mind procurates business in every developing thing with industrial revolution side by side. Middle ages gained the popularity of Valentine’s day so, during the 19th century factory made Valentine’s day cards came into limelight. Holidays became big business day by day and Valentine’s day was promoted to 2nd rank for exchanging cards after Christmas day all over the world.
Not only in only Valentine’s day cards, this day increased jewelry sales up to $5.8 billion, clothing sales up to $2.9 billion, flower sales up to $2.3 billion, candy or chocolate sales up to $2.4 billion and gift cards sales up to $4.3 billion during 2020. So, Valentine’s day is very crucial festival for business incensement.
Among the flowers red roses are mostly preferred by the young lovers as it is taken as the symbol of love, passion, attraction, affection and romance. Most interestingly, throughout the whole Valentine’s day card all over the world 85% of cards brought only by females.
INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON VALENTINE’S DAY :
Social media is being a major part of the digital world and has developed thought, idea, skills of human being and influence people towards it. The changing format of digital life influence the youth to celebrate holidays on social media. They can chat or wish their loved one’s through it.
Therefore various applications such as YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, Tinder, Tiktok, Twitter and even Instagram have developed many features to provide every single possibilities to talk or meet one another on social media.
You can enjoy with your partner, friends, family from any corner of the world. Globalization process connects everyone into one thread. In the 20th century or specially one decade, some popular hashtags just make your wish or post so easier.
You can also implement some very popular hashtags such as #valentine, #valentinesday , #love , #flowers , #gifts , #happyvalentinesday , #valentinegift etc.
Social media just performs your imagination at its best point. So it has a great influence over Valentine’s day.
CONCLUSION OF VALENTINE’S DAY :
It doesn’t mean that Valentine’s day is over, it only means this article concludes here. However the journey of Valentine’s day is much curious as it contains dark phases to limelight with the flowing time. Besides that, Valentine’s day is observed massively all over the world and the craze of this day is increasing.
Although it is observed with all today but the specialty belongs to the young charismatic couples.
The real meaning of Valentine’s day lies within it. For lovers ‘VALENTINE’S DAY’ maybe felt like a :
(V)Virtuous , (A)Ambitious , (L)Love, (E)Embedded, (N)Non-forgettable, (T)Triumphant, (I)Imminent , (N)Never (E)Ending-day.
What is your opinion about Valentine’s day ? Let us know by commenting….
