Hyderabad: The world will gear up to celebrate the ‘day of love’ on February 14. While couples will engage each other with gift exchanges, fancy dinner dates, and an overall celebration of love, the origins of Valentine's Day was far less romantic.
In recent times, it has become increasingly commercialised and hence 'the day of love' now has lost its essence among many people.
Valentine's Day is named after Saint Valentine, a Catholic clergyman who lived in Rome during the third century B.C.
The Romans had a festival called Lupercalia in the middle of February — marking the beginning of spring. It's believed that as part of the celebrations, boys drew names of girls from a box.
They'd be boyfriend and girlfriend during the festival and sometimes they'd get married. Later on, the church wanted to turn this festival into a Christian celebration and decided to use it to remember St Valentine.
Gradually, St Valentine's name started to be used by people to express their feelings to those they loved.
Origin of Valentine’s Day
While some believe that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or burial–which probably occurred around A.D. 270, others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to “Christianize” the pagan celebration of Lupercalia.
Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.
To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or Lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification.
They would then strip the goat’s hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year.
Later in the day, according to legends, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city’s bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage.
A look at all days of the week, history and significance
The week building up to Valentine’s Day is no less exciting, and each day comes with its own aspect of the expression of love, with one of them even being dedicated to people who wish to pop the question to their significant other! Valentine’s Week begins on February 7, that is a week before Valentine’s Day, and this year, it’s a Sunday.
Following are the days:
- February 7- Rose Day
- February 8- Propose Day
- February 9- Chocolate Day
- February 10- Teddy Day
- February 11- Promise Day
- February 12- Hug Day
- February 13- Kiss Day
- February 14- Valentine’s Day
However, a lot of Indians don't believe in celebrating Valentine’s Day, which falls on February 14, and think "the most romantic day of the year" should be treated like any other day.
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