it’s Valentine’s day today.. n i have Economics Mid-term tmrw… so gotta postpone Vday outing to tmrw… then my bf gonna leave for Perth on Fri… :’( …so sad…. but nvm,only for 5 days..
Happy Valentine’s Day to all…here’s a short article on the origin of Vday.. enjoy..
The History of Saint Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day started in the time of the Roman Empire. In ancient
Rome, February 14th was a holiday to honour Juno. Juno was the Queen of
the Roman Gods and Goddesses. The Romans also knew her as the Goddess
of women and marriage. The following day, February 15th, began the
Feast of Lupercalia.
The lives of young boys and girls were strictly separate. However, one
of the customs of the young people was name drawing. On the eve of the
festival of Lupercalia the names of Roman girls were written on slips
of paper and placed into jars. Each young man would draw a girl’s name
from the jar and would then be partners for the duration of the
festival with the girl whom he chose. Sometimes the pairing of the
children lasted an entire year, and often, they would fall in love and
would later marry.
Under the rule of Emperor Claudius II Rome was involved in many bloody
and unpopular campaigns. Claudius the Cruel was having a difficult time
getting soldiers to join his military leagues. He believed that the
reason was that roman men did not want to leave their loves or
families. As a result, Claudius cancelled all marriages and engagements
in Rome. The good Saint Valentine was a priest at Rome in the days of
Claudius II. He and Saint Marius aided the Christian martyrs and
secretly married couples, and for this kind deed Saint Valentine was
apprehended and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him
to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. He
suffered martyrdom on the 14th day of February, about the year 270. At
that time it was the custom in Rome, a very ancient custom, indeed, to
celebrate in the month of February the Lupercalia, feasts in honour of
a heathen god. On these occasions, amidst a variety of pagan
ceremonies, the names of young women were placed in a box, from which
they were drawn by the men as chance directed.
The pastors of the early Christian Church in Rome endeavoured to do
away with the pagan element in these feasts by substituting the names
of saints for those of maidens. And as the Lupercalia began about the
middle of February, the pastors appear to have chosen Saint Valentine’s
Day for the celebration of this new feaSt. So it seems that the custom
of young men choosing maidens for valentines, or saints as patrons for
the coming year, arose in this way.
