Valentine's Day [Fact vs .Fiction]

Valentine's Day [Fact vs .Fiction]

By Enas Elmohands

Valentine's Day. The holiday of pink balloons, chocolate, red roses, and diamonds. Oh, and love of course. But when you push aside all that hishposh, what is Valentine’s Day?

Well, the origin of the day lies somewhere between 300-400 AD when Constantine the Great legalized Christianity and established it as the official religion of the Roman Empire. However, the pagans who adopted Christianity did not want to abandon all the traditions they had before converting, one of them being the fertility festival, Lupercalia. The festival honored Lupa, the she-wolf who, according to legend cared for Remus and Romulus, the two brothers who founded Rome. The celebration included priests sacrificing animals such as goats. Boys would then slice the dead animals into strips, dip them into sacrificial blood, and run through the streets slapping around women who believed this form of abuse would bring them fertility. Later, in the same day, all the young women in the city would put their names in a large urn where the city’s bachelors would choose one and become paired for the rest of the year with the chosen woman. Most of these matches often ended in marriage, hence the romance aspect (I mean, you can say being pummeled with raw meat is romantic but let’s leave that matter to personal taste). This delightful day originally took place on the fifteenth of February but because Christians didn’t like the idea of pagans celebrating, well, their paganism, Pope Gelasius named February 14th Valentine’s Day (also changing the day) in honor of St. Valentine, the patron saint of lovers. Bet you didn’t know that, huh?

Yet, even so, the holiday we celebrate today is starkly different from the one celebrated centuries ago. Valentine’s day became a business. Just like Halloween, its purpose is to serve CEOs of companies such as Hallmark, Hershey, and Zales. The proof is in the fact that in the United States, Valentine’s week is ranked #1 in chocolate sales in which consumers spend more than $400 million. Furthermore, U.S. consumers spend an average of a $102 on Valentine’s gifts with a national total spending of almost $15 million. All for what? To express love? Why is it that we float through life, mindless, except on the labeled days we must act the way expected of us? Why is it that in order for someone to feel appreciated and loved, that said person has to wait until a specific day of a year? Why must we go the extra mile to dote on those we love when we should be going an extra two miles everyday, regardless? I understand it’s heartwarming and special and all that nonsense to have a day designated for love. But I say every day should be designated for love. So for all those out there who are serious about the depth of their emotions, prove it by freeing yourself from the oppression known as commercialism and express yourself through truth, not material things that will soon go to waste one way or another.