The Real Truth About Valentine’s Day

I had always been lead to believe, coming from Canada and influenced by North American beliefs, that Valentine’s Day was just a made up holiday that was a marketing gimmick to get people to spend money.  But that is not the truth.  Then again, perhaps that is what all my old boyfriends told me because they couldn’t be bothered or didn’t want to or actually didn’t feel any desire to show or express affection.  So they would say this line to try and get out of participating.

Now that I have come to the Old World, I am finding out bits and pieces about things that I never knew.  Isn’t it funny to think so many people are believing in falsehoods.  Well really, can I honestly say I am surprised?

But in anycase, Valentine’s Day is actually an old Pagan holiday – then again, most good holidays are.  In fact, we are better off calling it Happy Lupercalia Day.

In pre-Christian Rome, people celebrated “Valentine’s day” as Lupercalia, a Roman holiday that took place during the ides of February (the 15th). They believed that the goddess Juno Februata (where the name February comes from) inflicted her “love fever” on the young and unwary. The fertility festival of Lupercalia (in honor of the pastoral god Lupercus) involved an orgy and sexual excesses. Young men drew small “love notes” from a container composed by eligible young women. The men socialized with the women and attempted to guess who composed the note they had drawn. In this way, the festival brought young men and women together as sexual partners. (http://www.nobeliefs.com/Lupercalia-day.htm)

For years the Christian church tried to suppress the festival of Lupercalia. Interestingly, the Church did not object to the festival for its love celebrations but for the pagan beliefs that rejected the Christian god. In 496 C.E., Pope Gelasius changed Lupercalia from the 15th to the 14th and renamed it after the legendary St. Valentine in an attempt to stop the pagan celebration. Gelasius had hoped people would emulate the lives of saints. Even after the Church replaced Lupercus with St. Valentine and recast Cupid into a cherub, the Lupercalia festival continues much as it had before, but without the sexual excesses (maybe that’s a shame 🙂 ). The change of the name and the day of celebration serves as the only “contribution” that Christians brought to Valentine’s day.

So there you have it!  So Happy Lupercalia Day Everyone!