Understanding the Origins of Valentine's Day

February has come to be known for the Holiday of Valentine's Day. I'd heard for many years that this was not a real holiday, that it was a made-up day by the greeting card people. I wanted to know if that was true, so I did a little research and found that there is indeed more meaning to the holiday than our cynical ideas may have conjured up.

Valentine's Day History
Many sources state that the actual Christian Feast of Saint Valentine is most likely celebrated for a few different Saints of the same name. One in particular was said to have been imprisoned for performing marriages to soldiers who had been forbidden to marry, as marriage was considered a distraction from their duties.

There is also much conversation that Valentine's Day, like many other Christian holidays, may have more pagan origins. Lupercalia was a Roman holiday, celebrated on the Ides of February the 15th, as a fertility festival in the name of Faunus, a Roman god. Further fueling this energy, it was believed during the middle ages that February 14th was the beginning of the mating season for birds.

The first Valentine is said to have been sent in the early 1400's, with the credit of being the first to link this day to Romance going to Geoffrey Chaucer in his poem "The Parliament of Fowls."

And so it appears that Valentine's Day has been linked to romance long before Hallmark arrived on the scene. And, you do not have to be romantically involved with someone to appreciate the beauty of this holiday - sending a Valentine to anyone who has touched your heart will certainly warm your own.

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