Picture me sitting in my apartment a few days before February 14th. I was aimlessly scrolling through extravagant Valentine’s Day posts, when I realized I didn’t know its origin, or how it became full of consumerism.
After a deep dive on the internet, I couldn’t find a day centered around love and gifts like what we have today. What I found instead was vastly different extensions and variations of the holiday throughout history. But even though the variations differ in their contexts, I was able to find one common thread between them, the presence of a power imbalance.
The first evidence I found linked to Valentine’s Day occurred in Ancient Rome. The Romans would have a “feast of Lupercalia” held from February 13th through February 15th every year. During this celebration, the Roman men would violently kill animals such as goats or dogs, then skin them for the “ultimate sacrifice.” The women would eagerly stand naked in line, awaiting their turn to be whipped by an animal hide, as the romans believed this brutal act to be a sign of fertility. On top of this violent humiliation, the women would have their names placed in a jar, where the young men would pick their lady for the remainder of the festival.
Today, we know their fertility logic was false, but how does this “celebration” show the power imbalance in Ancient Roman culture?
Women didn’t have a say in the potential father to their children since they were reduced to a name on a paper and not as human beings. The power imbalance would be exemplified by the women being seen as objects that carried the men’s children and nothing more.
With that said, we know it takes two to make a baby, so why weren’t the men whipped with dead animal skin to become fertile? Or why weren’t the men’s names placed in a jar too? The short answer being, men were the dominant members of society, and because of this, they had the power to enforce and justify their actions without being questioned by the women, aka the “less powerful.”
On top of the “Feast of Lupercalia,” the Romans can also be responsible for how we got the name Valentine’s Day. Emperor Claudius II was a Roman emperor that outlawed marriage for young men because he saw marriage as a distraction from their duty as a soldier. Even in the depths of battles and regulations, a priest named St. Valentine continued to perform marriages in secret, as he found this law to be an iniquity. St. Valentine’s actions ultimately led him, and others like him to death by Claudius II on February 14th of the third century. The catholic church recognized their efforts as martyrs and celebrated them with the naming of “St. Valentine’s Day.”
We can see another power imbalance because Emperor Claudius II used his power to execute those like St. Valentine for going against him and his laws. St. Valentine didn’t have any power and the unfortunate result of that was death. Now, how do these events translate to a Valentine’s Day like what we have today?
In the fifth century, the Normans celebrated “a day of love for women,” called Galatin’s day. During the Middle Ages, Galatin’s day and St. Valentines day were combined to give us Valentine’s Day, a day of love.
Due to the colonization of the United States and Industrialization of cities around the world, consumerism spread rapidly. It all started with the printing of cards, and soon, this day of love turned to who could buy the most and biggest things for their loved ones. This is apparent as we watch celebrities show off their grand gestures on social media, while most of us struggle to afford a card and chocolates.
We can’t fix our economic class, especially not overnight. This means that those with money have the power to create expectations on occasions like Valentine’s Day. Once again, another aspect of this holiday was created from a power imbalance, and we are forced to relive these inequalities every February 14th.
If a holiday as simple as love can have a vast imbalance of power, then what does that say about the rest of the world we have created?
ShoutOut! James Madison University 