What do extinct plants, Roman gods and sacrificial goats have in common? Valentine’s day, of course! Valentine’s Day is an important day of the year for couples and single people alike. Around this ‘love’-ly time of year, we have a lot of traditions and symbols that become more prevalent than ever, but we don’t often question where these symbols came from.
One of the biggest aspects of Valentine’s Day is the gifts. We often exchange gifts with family, friends, and, needless to say, that special someone. During the days leading up to Valentine’s Day Americans purchase:
58 million pounds of chocolate
8 million “conversation hearts”
110 million roses
180 million cards
And a whopping
$2.2 billion worth of jewelry
We also have a lot of symbols that are especially prevalent leading up to this particular day of February, namely Hearts and Cupid.
Although ancient philosophers like Aristotle believed a person’s heart contained all human passion, our current symbol for love looks nothing like the blood pumping muscle in our chests.
So where did this ubiquitous symbol come from? There are several theories.
The first, and most common, of these theories is that it came from the shape of the Silphium plant’s seedpod. The now extinct plant was once widely used as a form of birth control before modern medicine intervened with actual medicine. Over time, the heart shape became a symbol for sex and, eventually, love. Other, also potentially correct, theories include: The shape came from the outline a pair of swans create with their necks during the mating ritual; the shape came from the outline of a women’s buttocks; or the shape came from a botched medical drawing of an actual human heart.
Cupid was the Roman god of love and the son of Venus (The goddess of love and beauty) He was an archer who would frequently shoot people with his magical love arrows so his mother could remain powerful.
We often see him depicted as a small baby, but his first form wasn’t even close to that. Cupid was originally a fully grown man, but in an attempt to keep love innocent and pure, renaissance painters and the church changed his image. They began depicting him as the most innocent thing they could think of: A Cherub, an angel in a permanent infantile form.
The history of Valentine’s day is where things get really interesting. Two ancient Roman holidays could be considered ancestors of our modern Valentine’s day.
February 14th was Februata Juno. On this day, young women would write their names on small slips of paper and put them in a jar. The young men would then draw a name from this jar, and the pair would spend the day together. Often, the couples from Februata Juno would court and marry later in life.
In contrast with this light-hearted holiday, February 15th was the Roman festival of Lupercalia. It was meant to honor Lupercus (The Wolf-God of the shepherd).
The festival was intended to purify the city and improve fertility. During the festival, naked priests called Luperci sacrificed goats and dogs, and roamed the streets striking any woman in sight with strips of goat hide.
In the 3rd century, Emperor Claudius the Cruel had a problem. He was conquering so rapidly that he didn’t have nearly enough soldiers to continue. Thinking it was because men didn’t want to leave their families to go to war, he annulled all marriages and outlawed any further marriages so that he could have more willing soldiers to defend their ever-expanding borders.
Despite the steep penalty of death for performing a marriage, Valentine continued to perform the important sacrament for many Roman couples. Upon being discovered violating the Emperor’s ruling, he was thrown in jail and executed on February 14th. Centuries later, he was canonized as a Saint, and was given Valentine’s Day, a celebration for lovers, on the very day he was martyred.
Now that you know where it all began, have a Happy Saint Valentine’s Day!
