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7 Things You Didn't Know About Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day Special

By Vishnu AravindhanPublished 3 years ago 7 min read
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7 Things You Didn't Know About Valentine's Day
Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

Valentine's Day, is it a time for romance or just a way for companies to sell flowers and cards? Listen, we can't tell you if that special someone loves you or loves you not. This is just an article asking you to read it. It's the seven things you didn't know about Valentine's Day.

1. Geoffrey Chaucer's poem made valentine's day special

In ancient Roman times, Valentine was a very popular name, and there are several stories of St. Valentine and Martyrdom. According to one tradition, the Roman Emperor Claudius II declared that Roman soldiers were not allowed to marry and then made weddings illegal. A Christian priest named Valentine found this to be quite a buzzkill and continued to perform marriages in secret. According to another story, a different Valentine was in prison for helping Christians and fell in love with the jailer's daughter. He signed his final letter to her, Love your Valentine. Apparently, they were both beheaded on February 14th. Some say the church scheduled the Feast of Saint Valentine during the Pagan Festival of Lupercalia in an attempt to Christianize the Sexy Holiday, which included spanking women with goatskin to promote fertility in the coming year.

However, the most direct descendant of our modern Valentine's Day that's associated with love and romance is from English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. In 1375, he wrote Parliament of Vowels, which contains the line, "For this was on St Valentine's Day when every bird comes there to choose his mate." Inspired the nobles of the 1400s began writing poems to their love interests as valentines, a brutal practice at the time because it would take weeks to know if they'd been ghosted.

2. Cadbury's Valentine's Day Gift

Although you may recognize them more from their eggs during Easter, give the Cadbury chocolate company a rose for creating the match made in heaven. V Day and Chocolate, founded in Birmingham, England in 1824 by John Cadbury, who was a Quaker. The company was originally a coffee and tea manufacturer, John, hoping that his drinks would serve as an alternative to alcohol. Drinking chocolates were all the rage back then, and during the 1860s, Cadbury sold 16 varieties of the stuff. The main byproduct was cocoa butter, which Cadbury began selling as eating chocolates, chocolate-covered nuggets, bonbons, caramels, and more in a red hot marketing move to promote their variety of chocolates. John's son Richard sold them in heart-shaped boxes so that even when the chocolates were gone, people could save the box to keep their memories and Valentine's. Chocolate was already viewed as an essential indulgence, but this got the world sweet tooth, hot and bothered in a whole new way.

3. Valentines Day in Prison

We already know that Chaucer was the first to start the centuries-long tradition of students handing out cartoon-clad notes to their whole fourth-grade class and inspiring those magical 11 words. He bought this card at CBS on your way home, didn't you?

But the oldest known Valentine, as we would recognize it, came in 1415 from the romantic confines of prison. Charles Duke of Orleans referred to his wife, Bonne of Armagnac, as his valentine in a letter he wrote to her while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London during the Hundred Years War.

Translated to English, Charles's poem reads, "My very gentle Valentine, Since for me you were born too soon and I, for you, was born too late. God forgives him who has estranged, me from you for the whole year. I am already sick of love, My very gentle Valentine."

So less of Valentine and more the lyrics of Emo Band from 2003, but still pretty good for the Middle Ages. In a not-so-happy ending, Charles was in prison for twenty-five years and Bond died before he was released.

4. Vinegar Valentines

Turns out the practice of trolling in the comments section far predates the Internet. All the way back to the Victorian era, back in the 1800s, in addition to the Valentines sent as a profession of love, people would send Vinegar Valentines, often anonymously, to people they didn't like. The sentiments ranged from a lighthearted jab to seriously harsh, scorned lovers would call out liars, cheaters and alcoholics. Others insulted their enemies, intelligence, or physical attributes. Many of the day's suffragettes received vinegar by the bag load, mailing valentines was so popular that British postal workers were given special meal allowances to keep them going during the days leading up to February 14th. Car manufacturing had become much cheaper and easier during this time, and one company, in particular, emerged to capitalize on the greeting card craze, "Hallmark."

5. The Origin of Red-Hearted Symbol

The shape of the Red Heart has become a universal symbol of love, but where did the heart symbol come from? The one that's used on everything from playing cards to emojis to ill-conceived chest tattoos? Scholars theorize it could have originated during ancient times with a plant, possibly giant fennel called Silphium. The Greeks and Romans used the plant as a form of birth control, and it became so popular as contraception and associated with sex that it was quickly formed into extinction. The ancient city of Cyrene in Present-day, Libya, became so rich from farming Silphium that it used the plant's shape on its currency, which bore a striking resemblance to our modern-day heart symbol. Others believe the symbol emerged in medieval times when scientists attempted to illustrate Aristotle's ancient writings on anatomy, where he described the human heart as having three valves with a dent in the middle. Some just believe the symbol bears resemblance to the breast or buttocks. Imagine your mom sending you, "Thanks for cleaning your room text with a peach emoji!!!, Thanks for saving us the embarrassment, Aristotle."

6. Get Punished at Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day and a few Middle Eastern countries bring a whole new meaning to the phrase you shouldn't have. Celebrating the holiday in Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia could get you severely punished. The belief generally comes from Muslim officials within these countries who see Valentine's Day as a Christian holiday or believe that it is un-Islamic and promotes casual sex and drinking alcohol, which are prohibited in the traditional Muslim faith. In the Indonesian province of Aceh, just the sale of gifts could have you publicly caned. In Malaysia, the Islamic Morality Police raided several hotels on Valentine's Day of 2011, arresting 80 Muslims because they were sharing rooms while unmarried. In Saudi Arabia, five men were discovered dancing with six women they weren't related to on Valentine's Day and were sentenced in 2014 to a total of thirty-nine years in prison and in India, groups have pushed the idea of ditching the celebration of romantic love and replacing it with a parent's worship day.

7. Cupid Story

Talk about a glow down, the cute little cherubic cloud baby we know is Cupid used to be a strapping young hunk named Eros. Eros is from Greek mythology, which predates the Romans Cupid. He was arguably one of the most powerful of all of the gods, for he controlled the most powerful emotion, love. His quiver contained two types of arrows, golden ones to strike overwhelming love and lead ones to invoke hate. He wielded his weapons like a mythological cuff boy, creating disastrous matches of godly proportions. In one story, he shot a golden arrow at Apollo, who fell madly in love with the name Daphne, then shot Daphne with a red arrow, causing her to be repulsed by Apollo, leading to a whole lot of drama, 'classic greeks'.

Some scholars believe that the infantilization of Eros was simultaneous with the fall of the social status of women in Athenian society. The Greeks were intimidated by this God who could control their love lives, but they weren't intimidated by women. So by transforming Eros into a cute little baby who always obeyed his mother, Aphrodite, they were much more at ease. There was no reason to be afraid and now we've got an adorable chubby cherub to fawn over.

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