He Loves Me, He Loves Me
Ah, Valentine's Day! The day on which florists sell almost as many flowers as on All Saint's Day. The roses they don't sell in November they sell today. Even more expensively. The shelves where the chocolates are displayed in supermarkets and pastry stores are empty. I assume dentists also welcome this practice.
I'm not putting down the festivity. I also celebrate it, and happily. Though it doesn't always have a monetary component for us. Stores wouldn't like our generally consumer-free celebrations. And that's how this holiday began in Spain. In 1948 a Madrid department store long-defunct, Galerías Preciados, introduced a new holiday. In a newspaper ad on February third, Galerías Preciados announced, "¿Cómo no augurar en España el más brillante éxito para el Día de los Enamorados? ¡Sábado, 14 de febrero!" (How to not foretell the most brilliant success in Spain for the Day of Lovers? Saturday, February 14th!) From the beginning it was touted as a day of consumerism. At first the consumerism was practiced mostly by the upper classes. After all, in the postwar years most Spanish families were trying to find enough food to survive. But the idea caught on, and by the 1960's, during an economic boom in Spain helped by the emigrants sending money home, it was a well-entrenched holiday.
The modern aspect of the holiday was begun in 1842 in the United States and Canada by Esther Howland, who began selling decorative cards with Cupids and roses, which were meant to be sent to friends and loved ones. From there it grew commercially. Before then it had already been celebrated in parts of Europe. There was a legend encouraged by Pope Gelasius I in the fifth century, concerning Saint Valentine of Rome. Valentine had been a secret Christian priest who married Christian couples in secret because such marriages were illegal at the time. He was caught out and executed as a martyr. His saint's day was celebrated on February 14th until 1969 when the Church abolished it, along with the celebration of other apocryphal saints.
Pope Gelasius' intent was that of Christianizing the Roman festival of Lupercalia, a pagan festivity whose origins mounted back to Romulus and Remus. Young men who had survived a hunting accident would gather at a cave on the Palatine. There the priests would sacrifice a dog and a goat. The naked young men would be anointed with the blood and then the skins would be torn in strips called februa and fastened to the men's hips. Afterwards, the youths would run down the Palatine whipping women with one of the strips. It was meant to make the women more fertile. It was first done (so legend says) during the reign of Romulus and Remus, when women in Rome were sterile. An oracle told the brothers how to remedy it with the sacrifice and whipping. Its probably very ancient origins lie in the need to assure fertility, the same as the life reawakening in nature at the same time.
Whatever the reason, humans have always needed to celebrate love. Those who love do it all year. But there is one special day in the year to announce it to the world with joy and happiness.
I'm not putting down the festivity. I also celebrate it, and happily. Though it doesn't always have a monetary component for us. Stores wouldn't like our generally consumer-free celebrations. And that's how this holiday began in Spain. In 1948 a Madrid department store long-defunct, Galerías Preciados, introduced a new holiday. In a newspaper ad on February third, Galerías Preciados announced, "¿Cómo no augurar en España el más brillante éxito para el Día de los Enamorados? ¡Sábado, 14 de febrero!" (How to not foretell the most brilliant success in Spain for the Day of Lovers? Saturday, February 14th!) From the beginning it was touted as a day of consumerism. At first the consumerism was practiced mostly by the upper classes. After all, in the postwar years most Spanish families were trying to find enough food to survive. But the idea caught on, and by the 1960's, during an economic boom in Spain helped by the emigrants sending money home, it was a well-entrenched holiday.
The modern aspect of the holiday was begun in 1842 in the United States and Canada by Esther Howland, who began selling decorative cards with Cupids and roses, which were meant to be sent to friends and loved ones. From there it grew commercially. Before then it had already been celebrated in parts of Europe. There was a legend encouraged by Pope Gelasius I in the fifth century, concerning Saint Valentine of Rome. Valentine had been a secret Christian priest who married Christian couples in secret because such marriages were illegal at the time. He was caught out and executed as a martyr. His saint's day was celebrated on February 14th until 1969 when the Church abolished it, along with the celebration of other apocryphal saints.
Pope Gelasius' intent was that of Christianizing the Roman festival of Lupercalia, a pagan festivity whose origins mounted back to Romulus and Remus. Young men who had survived a hunting accident would gather at a cave on the Palatine. There the priests would sacrifice a dog and a goat. The naked young men would be anointed with the blood and then the skins would be torn in strips called februa and fastened to the men's hips. Afterwards, the youths would run down the Palatine whipping women with one of the strips. It was meant to make the women more fertile. It was first done (so legend says) during the reign of Romulus and Remus, when women in Rome were sterile. An oracle told the brothers how to remedy it with the sacrifice and whipping. Its probably very ancient origins lie in the need to assure fertility, the same as the life reawakening in nature at the same time.
Whatever the reason, humans have always needed to celebrate love. Those who love do it all year. But there is one special day in the year to announce it to the world with joy and happiness.
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