Keeping a heart that’s full on Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day remains to be a much awaited annual event worldwide, especially by couples in love, while some are even unaware how crazy, dark, and bloody its history is. It came to pass that this day became known to be a time to celebrate romance, and for lovers to express their affection with the love of their life.
The closest origin could be in the city of Rome where a festival called Lupercalia is observed. Every 13th until the 15th of February each year, a male goat (or goats) and a dog are sacrificed, salted meal cakes are offered by the Vestal Virgins (priestesses of Vesta-goddess of the hearth), and a fertility rite where women who wish to conceive, present their hands to be struck by the goatskin-clad whip.
NPR political editor Arnie Seipel cites University of Colorado (Boulder) historian Noel Lenski as saying the Roman romantics “were drunk. They were naked”. Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them, he says. They believed this would make them fertile.
The festival also included the pairing off of women with men by drawing lots, a brutal matchmaking lottery, where young men drew the names of women from a jar and then be coupled up for the duration of the festival or even longer, if the match was right.
At the end of the 5th century, Pope Gelasius I (bishop of Rome from 1 March AD 492 to 19 November 496) replaced Lupercalia with St. Valentine’s Day.
St. Valentine’s Day was also commemorated by the Catholic Church honoring the martyrdom of two men — both named Valentine — who were executed by Emperor Claudius II (Roman emperor from 268 to 270) on February 14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D.
Today, the celebration is not just limited to exchanging “Valentine” greetings or other tokens of love and affection like chocolates and the customary red roses.
While we see the world evolving greatly from what used to be simple greeting cards and flowers on Valentine’s Day, let’s aim for a better world and make every day Valentine’s Day.
Keep a heart that’s full on Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day can be a simple and cruel reminder to singles that they are alone. Greeting them “Happy Valentine” would be irrelevant and depressing, because they are so aware how unattached they are.
Others may be content celebrating on their own enjoying a sumptuous meal with the finest chocolates and dessert, while some are joining others celebrating Singles Awareness Day.
Single blessedness has led several others to greatness, just as how some women who were divorced or abandoned by their husbands had become.
Mandy Hale, author of The Single Woman: Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass said, “single is no longer a lack of options – but a choice, a choice to refuse to let your life be defined by your relationship status but to live every day Happily and let your Ever After work itself out”.
Mandy Hale is known as “The Single Woman” who is unafraid to talk about the many realities of being single in a world that still asks “and WHY are you still single?” She inspires single women to live their best lives and to never, ever settle. She has made a name for herself as the voice of empowerment and sassiness for single women across the globe.