Thanks to Hollywood movies, the chocolate industry and the media, all of us has a fairly clear picture of Valentine’s Day essentials: roses, a box full of sweets, a romantic candle-lit dinner at a fancy restaurant, and sexy red lingerie come to mind. But where does Valentine’s Day really come from? How did it became so popular? Here are some facts behind the year’s most amorous day.
The Origins of Valentine’s Day
The holiday originated as a Western Christian liturgical feast day honoring the 3rd century Christian martyr St. Valentinus, a Roman bishop who was beheaded on 14 February, 269 on the orders of Emperor Claudius Gothicus, for marrying and helping Christian couples during a time when Christians were persecuted for their beliefs.
The day first became associated with romantic love in the 14th century, within the circles of Geoffrey Chaucer, a time when courtly love still flourished: originally a form of literary fiction, its base ideas were created for the entertainment of the nobility, but soon they transformed into a set of social practices, with the specific goal of attaining “a love at once illicit and morally elevating, passionate and disciplined, humiliating and exalting, human and transcendent.”
Customs & Gifts
In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who would be their Valentine, just like ancient Romans used to do during the festival Lupercalia. They would wear this name pinned onto their sleeves for one week for everyone to see. This was the origin of the expression “to wear your heart on your sleeve.”
Physicians of the 1800s commonly advised their patients to eat chocolate to calm their pining for lost love. Richard Cadbury produced the first heart-shaped box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day in 1868. Now, more than 35 million heart-shaped boxes are sold each year.
Did you know?
73% of those who buy flowers on Valentine’s Day are men. Of the 27% of women who buy flowers, 15% sends the flowers to themselves.
FUNZINE Heartbreaker Mix
Working through a heavy heartbreak can be especially difficult at Valentine’s Day, when it feels like that everyone in the world besides you had found their true love. If you want to dive deep into the sea of emotions rolling inside of you, put these tracks on repeat!
Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart
The title is a sarcastic spin on the 1975 pop hit ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’. The song itself is the most popular retelling of the painful process of growing apart from your partner, and falling out of love due to a lack of willingness to try and salvage the relationship. The lyrics are autobiographical, and describe the problems Ian Curtis and Deborah Curtis faced in their marriage; it paints a picture of Curtis’ general frame of mind in the time leading up to his eventual suicide in May 1980.
Jacques Brel – Ne Me Quitte Pas
The French are known to be the most romantic people on Earth, so it’s really no wonder that a French-speaking Belgian produced one of the most heart-breaking love songs ever recorded. ‘Ne Me Quitte Pas’ was penned after Brel’s mistress threw him out of her life, and is considered to be the ultimate hymn to the cowardice of men. Fun fact: the song’s most beautiful lyrics (“I’ll offer you rain pearls from lands where it does not rain”) are sung to a theme borrowed from Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6.
mewithoutYou – I Never Said That I Was Brave (Acoustic)
This song (whose title is borrowed from Leonard Cohen’s ‘So Long Marianne’) appears on American post-hardcore religious rock band mewithoutYou’s 2002 debut album as a hidden track, starting after 5 minutes of silence, and is sung by the group’s bassist. The original one is still amazing in its loud, angry and unpolished grandeur. But the warm, fireplace-crackling atmosphere of the acoustic version fits the beautifully desperate lyrics perfectly: “My stomach swears there’s comfort there / In the warmth of the blankets on your bed / My stomach’s always been a liar / I’ll believe it’s lies again”).
