By: ISABEL MARZULLO, STAFF WRITER
Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
This past Wednesday marked Valentine’s Day. A day in which individuals throughout the country show their love and affection by gifting flowers, chocolates and cards. Or perhaps they showed love by making a home-cooked meal or having a quiet night. Regardless of how Valentine’s Day is celebrated, one thing is definite: many people don’t know the history surrounding this day of love which is unfortunate as many people celebrate the day.
It’s believed to have started in 3rd century Rome with a man named Saint Valentine. He was best known for arranging secret marriages after Emperor Claudius II made a law prohibiting marriage out of fear it’d make his men bad soldiers.
Banning marriage because you’re afraid it’d affect your soldiers sounds absurd. However, it was a brilliant idea on Claudius’s behalf: If a man isn’t married, he has no family. If a man has no family, he has nothing to lose, and a man who has nothing to lose will join Claudius’s army. Prohibiting marriage was a way for Claudius to gain more men.
Saint Valentine, who felt marriage was sacred, despised Claudius for the ban. He knew two people should have the ability to marry if desired. Marriage was more than a war strategy, it was about getting to join together two individuals who loved each other. Valentine ignored Claudius’s wishes and arranged marriages in secret. Valentine became a loophole for couples; he was a window for couples to form a union.
While it isn’t known how Claudius discovered that Valentine arranged marriages, he did have Valentine arrested for breaking the law and ensured a death sentence would soon follow, which sounds harsh. Still, higher-ups weren’t notorious for showing mercy.
During Valentine’s sentence, he befriended the jailer’s blind daughter. There’s a legend that Valentine cured her blindness and fell in love with her.
In preparation for his execution on Feb. 14, he wrote the jailer’s daughter a love letter and signed it, “Your Valentine.”
Today, we celebrate Valentine’s Day as the day of love and can see how it came to be. Saint Valentine was a romantic. He so firmly believed in couples having their happily ever after that it led to his death.
Showing love on Feb. 14 is a way of remembering Saint Valentine and everything he stood for and sacrificed. It’s imperative that we celebrate Valentine’s Day; as all holidays have at least some historical context or legend.
marzulig22@bonaventure.edu
