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Valentine's Day
St. Valentine is the Catholic Patron Saint of Lovers. There are several different versions of his story and how he came to be the patron saint of lovers. One version of the story is that he secretly married soldiers and their sweethearts despite the fact that it was illegal for a Roman soldier to marry. Eventually he was caught and thrown into prison and later eventually executed. The idea of exchanging cards on Valentine's Day, is said to have started because Valentine's loved ones would pass notes/cards expressing their love for him through the prison bars. But this is probably not the real reason. The real reason is probably related to the combination of the religious holiday and the pagan Roman festivals. "Juno"
In ancient Rome, February 14th was a holiday to honor Juno [although it should be noted that the article on Wikipedia disagrees with this date saying that her festival was on February 1st]. Juno was the queen of the Roman gods. The Romans also knew her as the goddess of women, marriage, and childbirth. To be fair, festivities may have lasted for two weeks in prelude to Lupercalia, which I shall discuss next. February 15th, began the Feast of Lupercalia. The lives of young boys and girls were strictly separate. However, one of the customs of the young people was name drawing. On the eve of the festival of Lupercalia the names of Roman girls were written on slips of paper and placed into jars. Each young man would draw a girl's name from the jar and would then be partners for the duration of the festival with the girl whom he chose. Sometimes the pairing of the children lasted an entire year, and often, they would fall in love and would later marry. (Source: http://www.pictureframes.co.uk/pages/saint_valentine.htm) "Lupa and Romulus"
LUPERCALIA was to honor Lupa, the she-wolf who raised Romulus and Remus (the founders of Rome). The most common story is that Lupa found the two baby boys abandoned and raised them as her own, until they were found by a farmer who then adopted them and took over raising them. But, there are other version of the story. One version suggests that Romulus and Remus were her own children and that she was a werewolf, who passed her werewolf DNA on to her children. The father is never mentioned. I find the second version more interesting. Valentine's Day Today
American Culture (Today's Traditions) on Valentine's Day: 1. In elementary school, children exchange cards with all members in their class. 2. In middle school and beyond, only lovers exchange cards and/or gifts. It is traditional for a man to give chocolate and a rose to his sweetheart. 3. Today, Cupid is associated with Valentine's day, because he was the god of love. When he shoots one of his invisible arrows into someone's heart, that person will fall in love with the first person that they see.
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