Lifestyle Secrets

Before anybody had heard of Saint Valentine to bring romance into the season, mid-February was a lusty occasion for lovesick young people. As far back as 400 years BCE, ancient Romans took part in a special sweepstake as an act of worship to their god of shepherds, Lupercus. Teenage women had their names written down and put inside a box and then selected at random by eager young men. The ‘winners’ then found themselves effectively ‘married’ for a year.600 years later, the warlike emperor Claudius II put a stop to young men from marrying — he believed that unmarried males could fight harder in battle.

A Christian bishop, Valentine, didn’t agree with Claudius and continued to marry young couples in secret until Claudius learned of his disobedience and first imprisoned him, and eventually had him clubbed, stoned and beheaded on February 24th, 270.

The story goes that while he was locked up, Valentine fell deeply in love with his guard’s daughter and when he was taken to be executed, he left her a message which he ended with, ‘From your Valentine.’

Taking Valentine’s name in vain, the Church, in AD 496, decided to get rid of the pagan ancient lottery held in honor of Lupercus the pagan god and so decreed a small change in the rules:

Henceforth, both the young men and the young women would randomly choose from the box, but now they wouldn’t get the expected year of ‘marriage’ (or, indeed, the more earthy benefits that were implied), they now had to pick out a Saint whose character they were expected to spend the next year emulating.

Must have been quite a disappointment for the hot-bloodied young Romans!

They named the day after Saint Valentine whose choice, 226 years after his death, was in order to usurp the old-religion god Lupercus than from any real intention to promote love.

Thankfully, ingrained public loyalty to old ideas was more powerful than political will — especially when as unpopular as this and Saint Valentine remained synonymous with passion and love. The young Roman males, deprived of their lottery, began instead handing paper notes to the young ladies they hoped to gain favor with on February 14th.

Thus the tradition of distributing and receiving Valentine cards and messages was was introduced more than one-and-a-half millennia ago!

The earliest known card that is still in existence is in the collection of the british Museum in London. This first proper Valentines card was sent by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his wife in 1415. He was a prisoner in the Tower of London at the time and so outpourings of love were probably at an intense level!

In the late 1500’s the Bishop of Geneva wanted to reintroduce the regular ‘live like a saint’ lottery, but his efforts were short-lived. February 14th was by then too firmly associated with lovers for the Church to successfully interfere.

At the end of the 18th century, in 1797 a British publisher, a very enterprising fellow, published a booklet called ‘The Young Man’s Valentine Writer’ in which were scores of pre-written love poems for those who couldn’t write their own.

Sending Valentines cards anonymously all started in Victorian times. The publicly highly repressed Victorians privately adored anything that hinted at being ‘naughty’, but publicly had to display a show of respectful purity. As a consequence the verses in the cards became more and more obscene, while the writers remained hidden behind a respectful anonymity.

The first publisher of Valentine’s cards in America, Esther Holland was able to charge up to $35 for a single card. That was a fortune in 1870!

As a matter of interest love messages are traditionally ended with an ‘x’ because back when reading and writing was a rare skill, your signature was a cross. To make the mark an oath, people would kiss the cross they had drawn — much the same as they would kiss the Bible. Over time the written ‘x’ and the kiss became one and the same.

Have a lovely Valentine’s day! X

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