”from your valentine.”

it’s valentine’s day today, a day that’s thought to be reserved exclusively to celebrate romance. however, being the relatively orthodox capricorn i am, i spent today getting sh*t done like buying stationary i needed for university, finishing my university assignments, doing some reading and writing this blogpost! 

i’m not gonna pretend that i didn’t waste time on social media because, if you know me personally, you’ll know that i basically live on the internet. what took me by surprise, though, is the scarcity of “couple culture” and the abundance of self-love posts. 

don’t get me wrong, self-love is great and all, but wouldn’t you expect valentine’s day to be a bit more.... romantic? isn’t this basically what this day is for? 

in ancient rome, the early christian church used to have a festival called lupercalia, it was celebrated in mid-february honouring lupa, the she-wolf of rome, or faunus, the god of fertility. there would be an animal sacrifice followed by the main event that’s basically slapping females using strips of the animal’s skin and blood to vouchsafe fertility for the next year. 

drawing of the slapping of females
using strips of animal skin

fast forward to the 3rd century where claudius ii was the emperor of rome. he was a cold-hearted man that cared a lot for his battles but not at all for his army. he would require the men of his armies to forsake their families for long periods of time which caused them to get homesick and demotivated. but claudius didn’t care for their well-being, he only cared for accumulating power and only viewed love as an obstacle in his way, and so he decided to ban marriages. 

during that time, there was a pope called valentine who viewed the ban unjust and decided to secretly wed young lovers. 

at one point or another, the emperor found out and sentenced him to death. 

until the day of his execution, father valentine spent his last days in jail and, during that time, he fell in love with his jailer’s daughter. 

on the 14th of february, the day of his execution, he decided to pass her a note signed “from your valentine.”

relic of st. valentine in the church of 

santa maria in cosmedin, rome, italy

and that’s when it’s all said to have begun. is this the true origin story? is it not? i don’t know.

what i do know though is that; what valentine’s day’s love represents has changed time and time again, from slapping of women to secrete marriages and now to self-love and self-acceptance, not to mention family love and friends love. 

valentine’s day may have, at some point, represented romance, romance that’s so strong that it is to die for, but over the time, if there’s one thing it has always represented, it is definitely love, love in all its forms and shapes.