You may remember Valentine’s Day when you were younger as a holiday that was filled with little cards from classmates and with  everyone dressed in red and pink and gorging themselves on candy. Or as you got older you’d remember it as a holiday where you’d celebrate with that boyfriend you only had for a month or with friends because you would rather spend it with your pals than on a blind date with someone random.

No matter if or how you celebrate this day, the holiday has been around for a very long time and has always been rooted in romantic partners, sex and love. Today I’ll take you on an extremely brief look at the known history of Valentine’s Day. (Shoutout to National Geographic and National Geographic Kids for this material!)

Photo via weneedfun.com/

Valentine’s Day is named after a Saint, St. Valentine (obviously) with many origin stories

St. Valentine, Photo via hips.hearstapps.com/

that circulate around who he was and how he inspired this day. The most popular story is that he was a priest who would help people get married in secret. Back in Ancient Rome the Emperor Claudius II of Rome had banned marriage because he believed single men made better, stronger soldiers, but St. Valentine disagreed with this and put on religious ceremonies anyways. This was later discovered and he was killed on February 14th. 

Although  this is the story of the man it was named after, there were other origins that this holiday could have came from. The earliest one was years before St. Valentine lived and it is of a pagan tradition that brought people together in mid February. It was centred around feasts, meeting potential partners but most importantly fertility. 

*Cue a graphic warning*. According to this origin, men would strip naked and sacrifice animals such as goats. Once these goats were sacrificed their hides would be stripped and the men would whip women with them to promote their fertility. 

Our traditions surrounding this holiday have come a long way since that origin story and I’ll go back to taking the cute Valentines cards and tacky, supermarket flowers.