Sunday, February 16, 2025

The history of Valentine’s Day

The traditional month of expressing love to loved ones, Ferbruary, has arrived. The mood is already set as most shops have decorated while some are starting to decorate with red and white, in preparation for the day that is a preserve for lovers.

February 14 is a precious day when lovers spend some quality time together. For most lovers it is a tradition that society has forced them to commemorate. But most are not aware of the significance of Valentine’s Day.
Most of the people who are enslaved by the Valentine craze do not even know who St Valentine or Cupid is. They do not know what the bow and arrow that Cupid carries symbolizes.

The customs and traditions of St Valentine’s Day are founded on the most sexually perverted and pagan festivals of ancient history: Lupercalia and the feast day of Juno Ferbruata.
Valentine’s Day originated in the 5th century in Rome as a tribute to Valentine, a Catholic bishop. For years before Valentine’s Day was established, the Romans had practiced a pagan celebration in mid February commemorating young men’s rule of passage to the god of Lupercus.

They would draw the names of teenage girls from the box. The girl assigned to each young man turned out to be his sexual partner for the whole year. To get rid of this pagan festival, pope Celasius made changes to use names of saints instead of girls. People would emulate the ways of the saint they drew for the rest of the year. This made some young men unhappy about the new changes. Instead of the pagan god Lupercus the church preferred to have a saint of love to take his place. Thus Valentine was found appropriate. Emperor Claudius had declared that married men be made poor soldiers, after which he banned marriage from his empire.

But Valentine would secretly marry young men that approached him. When Claudius found out he commanded that Valentine be stoned and beheaded. Valentine became involved with the daughter of his jailer Asterius while waiting execution in prison. The girl was blind. Through the strength of his faith, Valentine miraculously restored her sight. Before his execution, Valentine signed a farewell message to her that read “from your Valentine”. This message grew to become very popular, and today it adorns many valentine cards.

Maybe that is the reason why many relationships break up just before they even start, because Valentine only used this message when he was about to be separated from his loved one.

There is also Cupid who is associated with the cherubic archer of Valentine’s Day. Cupid is the Roman god of passionate and playful love. He was the son of Venus the goddess of love and beauty. The name Cupid is a variation on Cupido, “desire”. Cupid is depicted as a cute, winged small boy with a bow and arrow that he uses to pierce the hearts of couples to cause them to fall in love. According to ancient beliefs Cupid had a lover, known as Psyche. They got married and had a daughter, Volupta, the goddess of sensual pleasure. It is believed that cupid used his arrow to pierce Psyche’s heart, and left a hole in her heart to inspire romantic love into reviving her from her deep sleep.

Thus no Valentine’s Day will be complete without a multitude of hearts. It is believed that the heart is the centre of all emotion.

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