Valentine’s Day Is Not A Christian Festival: Forget the Church, February 14 Has Wilder Roots

As Valentine’s Day approaches, so do highly aggressive emotions that a Christian cultural event is being forced on India’s pure traditions and that it is immoral. To the first charge, we must remember that Christianity itself had to struggle to try to uproot this raucous ancient pagan festival that the Romans observed as Lupercalia in February for centuries. Holy Christian Fathers were shocked by the degree of free love given to men and women.

When the Roman Emperor recognised the Christian Church, it denounced this cult of love and tried to ban it. The Church denounced the pagan goddess Juno Februata, after whom ‘February’ is named, and a Festival of Love was held.

The second problem of Puritans was also on the level of open public love as Indian culture looked down on them. Their main angst is that Indians do not display love and affection in public. Then, what about Khajuraho and other temples that celebrate love (and more) so openly? The attacks on romantic couples by fanatics are an expression of extreme jealousy in a sex-repressed society.

In fact, when Christianity spread, it faced the same problem of too much ‘love’. But after it failed to enforce morals, “the Church replaced the goddess with a mythical male martyr, Saint Valentine,” writes Barbara Walker. He was modelled as a handsome Roman youth, a sketchily Christianised version of pagan love gods like Eros, Cupid, Priapus or Pan.

This so-called Christian saint, Valentine of Rome, was said to have been imprisoned because he performed weddings for soldiers who were prohibited from marrying during service. He was also persecuted by the Romans for ministering to the members of the Christian sect — when it was still banned by Roman Caesars.

Since the story says he was killed for bringing lovebirds together, his martyrdom qualified him to be declared as a full-fledged saint. The interesting part of the tale is that when Valentine was taken away for execution he left an impassioned note to the daughter of his jailor signed as “Your Valentine”, as a sign of love and farewell. His relics are still preserved in Rome.

The Roman Christian Valentine has a bow and arrow to target hearts — just like our own Kāmadeva — God knows who pilfered whose copyright. Kamadeva wields a bow made of sugarcane and has a string of honeybees and arrows decorated with five kinds of fragrant flowers.

It’s wonderful to note how civilisations so distant like the Hindu and the Roman had the same bow and arrow motif for the god of love. He was called Eros by the Greeks and Cupid by the Romans.

The 14th-century English chronicler of the famous ‘Canterbury Tales’, Geoffrey Chaucer, played a role in popularising this day with “romantic love” in the Middle Ages. The courtly traditions of England picked up this craze and in the 18th century, both male and female lovers expressed their profuse passion for each other on the 14th of February.

Somewhere down the line, the two-way traffic of men and women exchanging presents gave way to only men giving them to women. But that’s not bad. It’s time men did something nice.

They presented flowers and sweets and little cards inscribing ‘Valentine’.  The western card industry took over this profitable venture and so did huge companies that sold chocolate candy and love gifts. Even with social media dominating now, cards and gifts are still in demand.

As for adopting foreign customs and objects — let us not forget that we have internalised extremely foreign objects — like the clock, the calendar, the cycle, the torch, the matchbox and countless others that are now totally Indian. Why not have a festival for the young in love?