You probably know you're going to spend a lot of money tonight, but you probably don't know why? Why is Valentine's Day celebrated? Why today? Why is it so important?
Let's start with Valentine - or Valentines. According to history.com, there are some Valentines, all martyrs, related to the holiday. However, Terni's Valentine is the most famous.
Under Claudius II, the Roman army consisted of almost single men. To save lives, Valentine, who was Bishop of Tern at the time, married couples to keep men out of the war.
Unfortunately, the emperor disliked this romanticism and beheaded the bishop on the outskirts of Rome.
There is another less violent story than this one. A man named Valentin, imprisoned by the Romans, sent a letter to the woman he loved with the signature, 'From your Valentine.'
This explains why the name is related to love but does not explain the holiday?
The merits belong to Lupercalia, the pagan Roman feast of fertility. During the festival, a goat and a dog were sacrificed. The fur was dipped in blood and the women brushed the skins of dead animals. We do not know how, but this was supposed to make them more fertile.
Regarding the Lupercalia finale - named after Lupa, the scream that raised Remy and Romulus - a pair raffle was held. Women put their names in a basket and the men selected them. Randomly formed couples stayed together until the end of the festival. Usually, they got married.
The commercial side of Valentine, with postcards and gifts, originated in the 19th century with Esther Allen Howland.
According to a 2017 article by Time, Howland is regarded as the Mother of American Valentine. During the 1850s, Valentine's Day cards were very expensive and exported from Europe.
Howland decided to make them himself and sell them at a reasonable price. At the top of her career, she earned $ 100,000 a year, which by today's standards reaches the value of multimillion.
