Valentine’s Day, also known as St. Valentine’s Day, is a celebration on February 14 during which lovers show their love through cards and presents. It has been suggested that the celebration has its roots in the Roman festival of Lupercalia, which takes place in the middle of February. The event, which marked the arrival of spring, featured fertility rituals and the random matching of women and men. Pope Gelasius I forbade the observance of Lupercalia around the end of the fifth century, and is frequently credited for replacing it with St. Valentine’s Day, though the holiday’s exact ancestry is at best hazy. Up until the 14th century, Valentine’s Day was not recognised as a day of passion.
Although there were multiple Christian martyrs by the name of Valentine, the holiday may have gotten its name from a priest who was executed by Claudius II Gothicus in about 270 CE. The priest is said to have written a letter to his jailer’s daughter, whom he had befriended and, by some accounts, healed from blindness, signing it “from your Valentine.” Although it’s likely that the two saints were actually one person, some legends claim that the holiday was named after the bishop St. Valentine of Terni. Another popular myth is that Saint Valentine disobeyed the emperor’s orders and secretly wed couples in order to protect the husbands from going to battle. This explains why his feast day is connected to love.
Valentines, or formal notes, first appearing in the 1500s. By the late 1700s, commercially printed cards had become commonplace. Midway through the 1800s, the first commercially produced Valentines were printed in the United States. Valentines frequently feature hearts, the traditional repository of emotion, as well as Cupid, the Roman deity of love. Birds also became a symbol of the day because it was believed that the avian mating season starts in the middle of February. Candy and flowers, especially red roses, a representation of beauty and love, are common gifts.
The day is widely observed not only in the United States but also in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Argentina, France, Mexico, and South Korea. It is the most popular wedding anniversary in the Philippines, and mass weddings with hundreds of couples don’t happen infrequently on that day. The occasion has evolved to include displays of affection amongst family members and friends. On this day, a lot of youngsters share Valentine’s cards with one another.
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