Valentine’s chocolates! Valentine’s red roses! Valentine’s jewelry from Cartier! Valentine’s lingerie from Victoria’s Secret! Valentine’s trips! Valentine’s dinners! Valentine’s champagne! Valentine’s boudoir photos! Valentine’s perfume! When it comes to pleasing a lover or gaining the favours of a sweetheart, exotic gifts are everywhere on or before February 14.
Indeed, you can buy almost anything heart-shaped at this time of year. I even saw an ad from a major kitchen company advertizing heart-shaped cooking pots. And if heart-shaped isn’t available, then seductive red should be the colour you pursue for your gift—red, the colour associated with passion.
One of my students wished that her boyfriend would catch the spirit and celebrate their love with a Valentine’s gift. I told her that if he wasn’t spoiling her with a red-satin box of chocolates at his young age, then he likely would not improve. I told her that if she loved him, why not turn Valentine’s Day on its head? Why not surprise him with a Valentine’s gift—the latest cologne, heart-printed golf balls, or expensive whisky? It’s a woman’s initiative-day, too.
So how did we get into this middle-of-the-winter Valentine’s fix anyway? Clearly, February 14 wasn’t always a day made for lovers, however, apparently in ancient Roman times there were three men named Valentine who became martyrs. So a Saint Valentine’s Day came into being as a day of church ceremonies.
At the same time, though, Romans celebrated Lupercalia in the middle of February. It was a festival with fertility rites at the centre. Young women put their names in an urn. Then their names were picked by bachelors, and the ladies chosen were paired with these men for a year.
So perhaps the pagan rituals won out. The religious observances are gone, but they were replaced by a day with its focus on love from the most innocent to the highly sexual.
The first published words naming Valentine’s as a day for lovers were written by the English poet, Geoffrey Chaucer in 1382. He wrote: “For this was on Saint Valentine’s Day/When every bird cometh there to chase his mate.” He wrote these words for King Richard II’s engagement to Anne of Bohemia, both being 15 years old.
Even Shakespeare in the early 17th Century couldn’t resist a Valentine’s word or two: “Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day/All in the morning betime/And I a maid at your window/To be your Valentine.”
One Valentine’s verse we often intone today was published as early as 1784. The way the poet wrote it follows: The rose is red, the violet’s blue / The honey is sweet, and so are you / Thou are my love, and I am thine / I drew thee to my Valentine.”
Beyond the gifts, ordinary folks don’t get very excited about Valentine’s Day in the Kootenays. A few roses float about, and usually a store-owner passes out cinnamon hearts or chocolates. Another might have available a tiny bag of sugary, heart-shaped candy with all the sayings on them: “Valentine, be true; You are mine; I love you; Love is sweet.”
These Kootenay folk, however, do send a few Valentine cards, mostly purchased cut-out cards, but occasionally a hand-made card. These handmade cards go back a long way as the first one was created in 1415 by the Duke of Orleans who was in prison. Being incarcerated, he sent his wife a love poem, addressing her as “my very dear Valentine.”
But fear not, new love traditions are arising almost daily. Yesterday, I received an e-card sent to me online. When I opened it, a voice sang a love song about the need to caress one another more often. It said, perhaps with love, the world could be at peace—if only for a day.