TOMORROW, Saint Valentine’s Day, will be celebrated in most parts of the world, especially in English-speaking countries. The origin of the festival lies in the obscure mists of history. There are at least three Catholic Saints who bore the name of Valentine, but the one who is generally believed to be commemorated on Saint Valentine’s Day lived in the third century in the Roman Empire during the reign of Emperor Claudius II.
In the third century, the Christian religion had begun to make inroads into the empire, and the Christian ethic was not as militaristic as the older Greco-Roman religion. This was a troubling trend to government administrators, as men of military age increasingly began to prefer staying at home with their wives and families rather than enlisting in the army. Recruitment to the army began to suffer badly, and the Emperor was at his wit’s end to know what to do. He, therefore, hit upon the plan of banning marriages and forbade all priests from performing marriage ceremonies.
Valentine,- a Christian priest, some traditions claim he was a Bishop – decided to risk his life by defying the Emperor’s orders. He secretly began to marry couples, but was discovered after some time and arrested.
When he was taken before the Emperor, he was given the choice of renouncing his Christian faith and reverting to the older Roman religion. He stoutly refused to give up his Christian faith and was accordingly sentenced to death. While awaiting his execution, he became very friendly with his jailer and was able, through God’s power, to restore the sight of the jailer’s blind daughter, Julia. The jailer and his family, impressed with this miracle, became Christians. On the night before his execution, he wrote Julia a farewell letter ending with the words “Your Valentine” which phrase came to be perpetuated through all time in Valentine’s Day communications.
On February 14, 270 AD, Bishop Valentine was first bludgeoned and then executed and when he was canonized by the Catholic Church, he was made the Saint of Marriage and Love. The love envisaged by the church was not romantic love but the love of family, friends and community. The concept of romantic love came into European culture only in the Middle Ages. Today, this concept is only now beginning to affect the non-Western societies of Asia and Africa.
In the Middle Ages, the age of chivalry with its knights and their ladies, the concept of courtly or romantic love was born and flourished. In the Middle English poet Geoffry Chaucer’s story of the Parliament of Fowls, the concept of birds and all other creatures pairing off romantically on February 14 was further propagated.
In the 19th century, romantic love began to be vigorously resuscitated since Valentine’s Day came to be commercialised, and this trend continued into the 20th century when there grew up a “Valentine industry producing decorations, cards, chocolates and candies worth nearly two billion dollars. There are other socio-economic related offshoots of romantic love, such as the film industry of Hollywood and Bollywood, where the theme of romantic love is celebrated in numerous popular films.
There are two other societal impacts. In non-Western societies, the concept of romantic love has been a liberating force, and the traditionalists have been waging a losing battle against it. In many Western cultures, the populations have become stable, not increasing, and even beginning to decline. The aged are now beginning to outnumber the younger, economically productive members of society. It is now beginning to be generally accepted that the St Valentine’s Day ideal of marrying and rearing families is a necessary imperative if Western societies are to continue to survive at the level they are and to be creative. St Valentine’s Day will therefore continue to be celebrated with greater verve and commitment.
