When a trip to Wal-Mart is made after Christmas, it is not difficult for most people to figure out what holiday is next in line. The smell of roses dances through the air while the shelves slowly become stocked with heart shaped boxes filled with chocolates, teddy bears that sing “Wild Thing,” boxes of cards with characters like Dora the Explorer or Barbie on them and any red or pink item imaginable. The phrase, “Will you be my Valentine?” will be uttered from the mouths of lovers on their special day, Feb. 14, but do they know what the day for lovers is about? Valentine’s Day, like most holidays now, is extremely commercialized, Ryan Devillier, business management junior from Thibodaux, said. He said businesses take advantage of the opportunity to make money off of love.
“I am not saying it isn’t smart. Consumers bite the bait every year,” Devillier said. “Valentine’s Day is a holiday many Americans use as an opportunity to spend money on the people they love.”
This idea is common among students. Samantha Crochet, dietetics junior from Pierre Part, said greeting card, candy and flower companies created the “commercialized holiday” to collect revenue.
“Do people really believe the holiday is about love?” Crochet said.
Contrary to students’ beliefs, there is more to the tale of Valentine’s Day.
The holiday is named after two Christian martyrs named Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni. The two are listed in early martyrologies under the date Feb. 14, and Bollandists, an association of Jesuit Scholars who published Acta Sanctorum, have concluded the two were the same person, according to Wikipedia.com. There is also a third St. Valentine from Africa who was also martyred on that day, but he is not recognized.
The undeniable history of Valentine’s Day and its patron saint remain a mystery. Various legends of St. Valentine were likely to be invented during medieval and modern times, according to Wikipedia.com.
According to History.com, one legend said while Valentine was in prison, he sent the first Valentine to a girl who visited him during his incarceration, and she is said to be his jailor’s daughter. Before his death, he allegedly wrote her a letter, which he signed, “From your Valentine.”
According to another legend, Roman Emperor Claudius II outlawed marriage for young men, because single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families. St. Valentine, a priest in Rome, secretly performed marriages for young lovers. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered he be put to death, according to History.com.
The day became associated with romantic love in the High Middle Ages when the traditions of courtly love flourished, according to Wikipedia.com. The first recorded association of Valentine’s Day with romantic love is in “Parliament of Fowls” by Geoffrey Chaucer. The character Ophelia in “Hamlet” also mentions the day.
Valentine’s Day was introduced to North America by British settlers in the 19th century, according to Wikipedia.com. The first mass-produced valentines were made of embossed paper lace and were produced and sold by Esther Howland shortly after 1847 in the United States. Howland’s father operated a large book and stationery store, and she used the English the Valentine she received as inspiration, according to Wikipedia.com.
Now, The Greeting Card Association estimates that throughout the world, approximately one billion Valentines are sent each year. This makes the holiday the second largest card-sending holiday after Christmas, according to Wikipedia.com.
