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Valentine`s day

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St. Valentine’s Day

St. Valentine’s Day falls on February 14, and is the traditional day on
which lovers in certain cultures let each other know about their love,
commonly by sending Valentine’s cards, which are often anonymous. The
history of Valentine’s day can be traced back to an obscure Catholic
Church feast day, said to be in honor of Saint Valentine. The day’s
associations with romantic love arrived after the High Middle Ages,
during which the concept of romantic love was formulated.

The day is now most closely associated with the mutual exchange of love
notes in the form of “valentines.” Modern Valentine symbols include the
heart-shaped outline and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th
century, the practice of hand writing notes has largely given way to the
exchange of mass-produced greeting cards. The Greeting Card Association
estimates that, world-wide, approximately one billion valentine cards
are sent each year, making the day the second largest card-sending
holiday of the year behind Christmas. The association also estimates
that women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines.

History of Valentine’s Day

February fertility festivals The association of the middle of February
with love and fertility dates to ancient times. In the calendar of
Ancient Athens, the period between mid January and mid February was the
month of Gamelion, which was dedicated to the sacred marriage of Zeus
and Hera.

In Ancient Rome, the day of February 15 was Lupercalia, the festival of
Lupercus, the god of fertility, who was represented as half-naked and
dressed in goat skins. As part of the purification ritual, the priests
of Lupercus would sacrifice goats to the god, and after drinking wine,
they would run through the streets of Rome holding pieces of the goat
skin above their heads, touching anyone they met. Young women especially
would come forth voluntarily for the occasion, in the belief that being
so touched would render them fruitful and bring easy childbirth.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia (1908), at least three different
Saints Valentine, all of them martyrs and all quite obscure, are
mentioned in the early martyrologies under the date of February 14:

a priest in Rome who suffered martyrdom in the second half of the 3rd
century and was buried on the Via Flaminia.

a bishop of Interamna (modern Terni) also suffered martyrdom in the
second half of the 3rd century and was also buried on the Via Flaminia,
but in a different location than the priest.

a martyr in North Africa, about whom little else is known.

The connection between St. Valentine and romantic love is not mentioned
in any early histories and is regarded by secular historians as purely a
matter of legend (see below). The feast of St. Valentine was first
declared to be on February 14 by Pope Gelasius I in 496. There is a
widespread legend that he created the day to counter the practice held
on Lupercalia of young men and women pairing off as lovers by drawing
their names out of an urn, but this practice is not attested in any
sources from that era.

In the 19th century, relics of St. Valentine were donated by Pope
Gregory XVI to the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin,
Ireland, which has become a popular place of pilgrimage on February 14.

In 1969, as part of a larger effort to pare down the number of saint
days of purely legendary origin, the Church removed St. Valentine’s Day
as an official holiday from its calendar.

Valentine

The influential Gnostic teacher Valentinius was a candidate for Bishop
of Rome in 143. In his teachings, the marriage bed assumed a central
place in his version of Christian love, an emphasis sharply in contrast
with the asceticism of mainstream Christianity. Stephan A. Hoeller
assesses Valentinius on the subject: “In addition to baptism, anointing,
eucharist, the initiation of priests and the rites of the dying, the
Valentinian Gnosis mentions prominently two great and mysterious
sacraments called “redemption” (apolytrosis) and “bridal chamber”
respectively”.

Medieval era Swedish calendar showing St Valentine’s Day 14 February
1712 The first recorded association of St. Valentine’s Day with romantic
love was in the 14th century in England and France, where February 14
was traditionally the day on which birds paired off to mate. This belief
is mentioned in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Parlement of Foules (1381)

It was common during that era for lovers to exchange notes on this day
and to call each other their “Valentines”. A 14th century valentine is
said to be in the collection of the British Library. It is probable that
many of the legends about St. Valentine were invented during this
period. Among the legends are ones that assert that:

On the evening before St. Valentine was to be martyred for being a
Christian, he passed a love note to his jailer’s daughter which read,
“From Your Valentine.” During a ban on marriages of Roman soldiers by
the Emperor Claudius II, St. Valentine secretly helped arrange
marriages.

In most versions of these legends, February 14 is the date associated
with his martyrdom.

Valentine’s Day in the USA

Valentine’s Day was probably imported into North America in the 19th
century with settlers from Britain. In the United States, the first
mass-produced valentines of embossed paper lace were produced and sold
shortly after 1847 by Esther Howland (1828 – 1904) of Worcester,
Massachusetts. Her father operated a large book and stationery store,
and she took her inspiration from an English valentine she had received.
(Since 2001, the Greeting Card Association has been giving an annual
“Esther Howland Award for a Greeting Card Visionary”)

In the United States in the second half of the 20th century, the
practice of exchanging cards was extended to include the giving of all
manner of gifts, usually from a man to a woman. Such gifts typically
include roses and chocolates. Starting in the 1980s, the diamond
industry began to promote Valentine’s Day as an occasion for giving fine
jewelry.

In 1929 due to tensions between gangs in Chicago, members of a gang led
by Al Capone killed several members of Bugs Moran’s gang in what became
known as the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.

The day has come to be associated with a generic platonic greeting of
“Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Those without a significant other often speak with sarcasm by referring
to Valentine’s Day as “Singles’ Awareness Day”.

Valentine’s Day in Other Cultures In Japan and Korea, Valentine’s Day
has emerged, thanks to a concentrated marketing effort, as a day on
which women give candy to men they like. Rather than being voluntary
however, this has become for many women – especially those who work in
offices – an obligation, and they give chocolates to all their male
co-workers, sometimes at significant personal expense. This chocolate is
known as giri-choco, in Japan, from the words giri (obligation) and
choco, a common short version of chokoreto, meaning chocolate.

By a further marketing effort, a reciprocal day, called White Day has
emerged. On this day (March 14), men are supposed to return the favour
by giving something to those who gave them chocolates on Valentine’s
Day. Many men, however, give only to their girlfriends. Originally the
return gift was supposed to be white chocolate or marshmallows (hence
the name “White Day”). However, more recently men have taken the name to
a different meaning, thus lingerie is quite a common gift.

In Korea, there is also an additional Black Day, held on April 14, when
males who did not receive anything for Valentine’s Day gather together
to eat Jajangmyun (Chinese-style noodles in black sauce).

In Chinese Culture, there is a similar counterpart of the Valentine’s
Day. It is called “The Night of Sevens”, on the 7th day of the 7th month
of the lunar calendar; the last one being August 11, 2005 [2]. (A
slightly different version of this day is celebrated in Japan as
Tanabata, on July 7th (the same day, but transcribed to the solar
calendar)).

In Persian Culture (Iran) this popular date is discreetly celebrated by
most lovers despite the disapproval of such occasion by the hardline
slamic government as a copycat of the west, but Persian youths and
adults manage to celebrate following the traditions of the west
disregarding the unfair limitations and restrictions imposed by the
government.

In Brazil, there is no such day as Valentine’s Day. Instead, on June 12,
“Dia dos Namorados” (lit. “Day of the enamored”, or
“Boyfriend’s/Girlfriend’s Day”) is celebrated. On this day, boyfriends
and girlfriends, husbands and wives, exchange gifts (lingerie,
chocolates, and more), cards and usually a flower bouquet. This day is
chosen probably because it is one day before the Saint Anthony’s day,
there known as the marriage saint, when many single women perform
popular rituals in order to find a good husband (or, more modernly at
least a boyfriend).

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