Valentine’s Day - A ritual, twisted with the passage of time.

Valentine’s Day - A ritual, twisted with the passage of time.

I wanted to post this article a couple of days ago, but if I had, I may have come under heavy flak from my young and (old!!) friends, who would be quick to judge me as unromantic, judgmental and probably brand me as someone lacking in enthusiasm for cupid’s playfulness – or still worse – a spoiler of good fun, at the very least. But I have to set right a basic premise here, If only to lend credibility, or an authentic meaning to a day which all of us have come to celebrate as Valentine’s Day.

In all the holidays that crowd a western year, most of them find their relevance in Christian theology; and the few others like “Mother’s day” or “Father’s day” are merely matters of social convenience and nothing more; and the remaining are political in nature. What stands as an odd ball out in this series of premeditated holidays is the curious veneration of Romanticism and “love” on the fourteenth of February each year? Now, common sense dictates that commemorating a day for a specific kind of celebration in society must have a historical, cultural, social, religious or political justification, otherwise it becomes a meaningless symbol that one might as well do without. I have been student of comparative religions and theology for some time now; and when I seek to trace the cause for Valentine’s Day, I seem to be quickly reaching a cul-de-sac. Historically, there seems to be absolutely no creditable reason for declaring this day in honor of any saint. And moreover, it seems to have its origin in a rather grotesque, or If may say, bizarre sequence of events that happened at the dawn of Christianity, which in the passage of time have come to assume a completely different complexion. I have to explain myself here:

Firstly, Catholic history has on record at least three different verifiable Valentine’s (if not more, if one could consider the variations in the name of Valentine..) in its books, all of whom died for the cause of Christ, and hence were martyred and canonized as Saints. One of them defied the Roman king Claudius’s capricious imperative (again hearsay, no factual evidence) that young men were better off single than be married; and this fictitious Valentine surreptitiously helped young couples to be united in vows of marriage. He was supposedly put to death by Claudius. The second version merits another Valentine with performing a Schindler’s act, by aiding prisoners of war to escape the tyranny of imperial Rome. Himself imprisoned, he fell in love with the harsh jailor’s daughter, and sent her, what was probably first Valentine card in recorded history signed as “from your Valentine…”. The third account, which in my opinion (seems the most reasonable of the lot) has more to do with the takeover of Roman pagan rituals by Christian mythology. The month of February is the traditional celebration of “Lupercalia” – a Roman event that honored the birth of Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Legend has it that both of them were fed and bought up by wolves; and in honor of their mysterious parenthood, every year in the month of February, Roman priests would sacrifice a goat, or a dog or any other domesticated animal at an altar, strip their skin, dip them in blood; then parade the dripping animal’s hide round the city slapping Women and crops who happen to be on their way. Whosoever came in contact with this cleansed blood was assured fertility. Therefore, young women, who had reached puberty, stood waiting outside their doors with bated anticipation for this proverbial touch of ritualistic blood to give vent to newly aroused desires; and boys loved this yearly feast of virgins. If the ladies were touched, it was considered a God ordained license giving them uninhibited authority to copulate and procreate. At the end of this bacchanal paraphernalia, the names of girls (after having been deflowered) eligible for martial vows would be collected in an urn, for marriageable boys to pick, and make their own. Ritual of this kind were not uncommon in the pre-Christian era, and Romans were highly skilled in transformation sex into stylized motifs; and this festival is one of the prime examples of such an act. So it is not surprising that after Christianity became the official religion of Rome, since Emperor Constantine’s famous conversion; they sought to sanctify these debaucheries by declaring the 14th of February as Saint Valentine day (it is unclear which Valentine got this accolade conferred on him) with the intention of stopping the “depraved” licentiousness of the older Pagan ritual. It is not clear whether Pope Gelasius, by such a promulgation, wished to sanctify Saint valentine for his ‘divine” love of God and thereby transform carnal love into spiritual upliftment, or was it just a moral arrangement to put an end to this parade of copulation that happened in February. There is no evidence to point either way. I am sure that Pope also had in mind the fact the February is normally the mating season of birds, and sweet noises emanating from their innocent act were perceived by orthodoxy as temptations of the devil himself; and hence needed to be silenced by an act of Papal decree. Whatever may be the case, the proclamation of St Valentine’s Day served dual purposes at one stroke. It restricted the spread of Paganism and instilled guilt within a religious framework. In my study of catholic history, Papal bulls, injunctions and canonizations have always been issued to stop something from taking root, never to start anything new; hence I am thoroughly convinced that the Church did not have any intention of “celebrating” human love or romanticism in mind when St Valentine’s Day was declared. It was more of a subtle denunciation of what they considered was utter moral depravity.

However, it is only in the fourteenth and fifteenth A.D, after a gap of ten centuries that St Valentine’s Day sought its revival in the legend of crusading Knights. The troubadour movement, the manly missions of Knights, the innate sense of destiny that epitomized these warriors, their sense of honor and masculinity; their undaunted courage to rescue damsels in distress - all of them gave this legend an unique twist of sophisticated romance and unrequited love. What was originally an invitation to sex all of a sudden metamorphosized into a moral obligation and heartbreaking romance - and thus began the adoption of modern interpretation of Valentine’s Day, as we know it - A day to keep our vows to the opposite sex.

So ladies and gentleman, when your boy or girl goes out on a Valentines date, or you happen to exchange flowers or cards with your beloved; Pls understand it to be a symbolic reenactment of a pagan ritual that meant one’s readiness or invitation for physical union. It is only in the last four hundred years, that we have pushed the symbolism under covers and diluted the raw physicality of this event, and clothed it in idealistic romantic images. Sigmund Freud would not have been very happy with such an interpretation. He would have scorned at such a dilution of meaning in Valentine’s Day symbolism. It was designed to be an open invitation to physical consummation; instead we have reduced it to “Eros” - which is selective and cerebral love.

For whatever it is worth, February 14th is now a worldwide event. Even countries that cannot afford to provide two square meals a day to its citizens, snares its credulous public to spend money on gifts and Dates. And USA have transformed this myth is into massive money spinning opportunity. Read this for a taste of how much was spent in the last week alone on this notion of Valentines day: A whopping $19 billion was spent between Feb 9 to 14th, with an average American spending $150 on gifts (not surprisingly, Men spend twice as much as Women). $3.9 Billion was spent on Date nights with restaurants and theme clubs ruling the roost. A bizarre fact came to my notice as well: $702 million was spent on buying Valentine gifts for “pets” (Now, that is a nice twist to the old Roman ritual).

Well, the intent of this essay is not to disparage a socially accepted celebration, but only to humbly point out that, in our age where we so easily discredit most kinds of religious event or symbol as meaningless and irrelevant; laugh, scorn and in many cases ridicule them, without understanding its relevance or meaning – we tend to be more forgiving when it comes to things that we sympathize with or even like to do. If the 14th of February is indeed the commemoration of a St. Valentine, then what you have read in paragraphs above is the rationale behind this symbolism. It is all about venerating Sex and procreation and not the puritan love that we bandy about. Now there is absolutely, nothing wrong with the way we celebrate it, as long we accept and understand the symbology of its origins, and try not to camflouage in it sugary words and interpretations.

On a lighter vein, I heard from a friend yesterday, who hails from one of the more affluent African countries, that the only thing which gets out of stock on Valentine’s Day are condoms. I completely understand why? And perhaps, in my opinion, they have a truer appreciation of what Valentine’s Day truly means than many of us who would rather shop for a card that tries to project our carnal love in words that does not mean what we actually want or wish…

God bless…