The Reality of Valentine's Day

Have you walked into a store recently and been bombarded with a sea of red, white, and pastel pinks? Yeah, me too. With Valentine’s Day coming up, it seems like love is in the air. But let’s take a step back and dive into the dark origins of “the day of love” and its modern-day reality.

The earliest known origin of Valentine’s Day goes back to Ancient Rome and Lupercalia, a festival of fertility that took place between February 13th-15th. The Lupercalia festival was a very violent ordeal that was composed of multiple parts. To start off the festival, a group of priests, also known as Luperci, would gather in the Lupercal cave to slaughter dogs and male goats, which were symbols of sexuality. The Luperci would then remove their clothing, slather themselves in the blood of the dead animals and move to the city of Ancient Rome to continue the festivities. There, the Luperci priests would use whips made from the dead animals to strike women as a fertility ritual. This form of ritual was wholeheartedly welcomed as the women bared their skin to improve their chances of fertility. The third and final part of this festival involved the names of women being randomly drawn by men to decide who they would be coupled with to perform sexual activities for the remainder of the year. In many occurrences, these couplings would fall in love, get married and procreate. Now that we know more about the twisted origin of Valentine’s Day, let’s look into its manifestation in the 21st century.

As we well know, Valentine’s Day is full of flowers, chocolates and other heart-felt gifts. According to statistics that track Valentine’s Day sales, the holiday brings in around $20 million annually. Companies worldwide capitalize on this holiday by creating traditions of gifting your significant other flowers, chocolates, and other trinkets. According to the National Retail Federation, individuals spend an average of $161 on Valentine’s Day items annually. In the weeks leading up to February 14th, florists become incredibly busy, reservations for dinner get booked up and jewelry sales increase exponentially. In modern times, Valentine’s Day has just become a way for corporations to profit from the pressure we feel to show our love in the form of expensive gifts and trinkets on a random day in February.

That being said, despite its twisted origin and modern-day corporate reality, Valentine’s Day is still a great way to show your appreciation for the people you care about, or yourself. Whether you choose to use flowers and chocolates or acts of service, go show someone you love them on February 14th.

Written by Harni Ganesarasa

Edited by Sinead George