Valentines day is an annual festival where in people celebrate love, affection friendship and admiration. Every year on 14th February people send each other gifts and celebrate this day with abundant happiness and sharing smiles and making other smiles but why do people celebrate it?
Let’s look into history first:
Valentines day is named after Saint Valentine, who was a catholic priest who lived in Rome in the 3rd century. There are so many stories about Saint Valentine that today they have over grown and became legends to us today.
During the time of Valentine’s life, many romans converted into Christianity which drove the emperor Claudius II mad who was a pagan so he created strict laws that were to be followed by Christians and he was the one who decided what the Christians would do.
Emperor Claudius who was biased about Marriage believed that the soldiers should be totally devoted to Rome so he created a law that prevented marriages from happening. Seeing this Saint Valentines took a bold move and secretly started marrying the soldiers who wanted to marry in Christian ceremonies and hence people began to realize the importance of love.
After finding that the Emperor Jailed Valentine but valentine started caring about his fellow prisoners and also the jailer’s blind daughter. Legends say that he cured the blindness of the girl as he was in love with her but the Emperor who got a hang of this ordered to execute Valentine and just before his execution Valentine had left a letter for his love and signed with “Your Valentine”. Valentine was executed on 14 February in the year of 270.
So, how did it develop in later years?
After the execution of Saint Valentine time passed and 200 years later it was proclaimed that 14 February to be “Saint Valentine’s Day” in honour of what he did. By the time it was proclaimed Rome had already turned into Christian and catholic church was also determined to stamp out any paganism which was remaining hence breaking all the laws made by Emperor Claudius. The pagan fertility ritual which was held every February was abolished by the Pope and proclaimed 14 February as Saint Valentine’s day, thus establishing this feast day on the Calendar of Catholic Saints.
There’s a saying that a poet named Chaucer in the middle ages was the first love to link St. Valentine with romantic love which was only the beginning of the tradition of love and a ritual of expressing admiration and love in secret. This custom then spread throughout the continent of Europe and many stories grew about High Court of Love where female judges would rule on issues related to love on February 14 each year. Some say that the meetings held were just to recite love stories and poetries.
Valentine’s symbol?
Sending gifts to express love became a symbol during the 18thcentury and even now people today express their love and affection by sending gifts to their loved ones on 14 February and the entire country expresses love for their loved ones.
Cupids shooting arrows, letter also became symbols of valentines and a mystery mythology revolves around cupid.
What’s Valentine’s in today’s world?
Valentines day today is not just showing love for the couple but its more than just couples. Valentines day is some countries is celebrated as a day where the grown-up show love and affection for their parents and their kids and kids show love and affections for their parents. Valentines today has evolved a lot and it has brought many good changes. On the 14th of February no one is sad because everyone is out there to express love, admiration and affection and make others realize they are there for them hence ending all misconceptions and misunderstanding and improving relationship.
People celebrate valentine’s day in honour of the great Saint Valentines and in order to be happy and share love and be there for their important ones at least for a day. Families gather and a get together happens during Valentines in some countries.
Creative gifts are given in order to bring smile on the faces of others and valentines is the ultimate gift to the mankind as it’s the day when love is in the air.
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