By: Dr. Ratan Bhattacharjee
February is the month of love as Valentine’s Day occurs this time. As soon as February begins, people begin looking forward to Valentine Celebration in a special way. “You can’t buy love, but you can pay heavily for it.” Every February 14, across the world, candy, flowers and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St. Valentine. During the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed in France and England that February 14 was the beginning of birds’ mating season, which added to the idea that the middle of Valentine’s Day should be a day for romance. Many assume that Geoffrey Chaucer is somehow responsible for Valentine Day. Exactly how he is responsible for it, nothing is more known than one poem written by Chaucer. The Parliament of Fowl for February 14 and many end up with claims ranging from “Chaucer invented Valentine’s Day,” to “Chaucer invented St. Valentine,” to “Chaucer wrote the first Valentine. Love birds remain a popular symbol of Valentine’s Day even now, and for this we can thank Chaucer. Chaucer’s most famous work is The Canterbury Tales, an enormous collection of linked stories in poetry and prose. But his 700-line poem “Parlement of Foules” has the special distinction of being the first surviving record of a connection between Valentine’s Day and romantic love.
Chaucer probably composed the poem in 1381–82. At the time, he was a member of the court of King Richard II, holding an important bureaucratic position in London. The date suggests that Chaucer wrote “Parelment of Foules” to honour the first anniversary of the engagement of the English king to Princess Anne of Bohemia. The poem follows the dream of the narrator, where he walks through Venus’s temple and discovers a meeting of birds where they all choose their mates. This is where the mention of St. Valentine’s Day appears. For this was on St. Valentine’s Day, /When every bird cometh there to choose his mate. The poem also contains a familiar Valentine’s image, Cupid with his arrows: Under a tree, beside a well, I saw/Cupid our lord his arrows forge and file; /And at his feet his bow already lay. When Chaucer mentions St. Valentine’s Day, is he referring specifically to February 14th. Some claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to “Christianize” the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city’s bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage. In Meghalaya such a festival is observed as Behdienkhlam annually in July after the sowing period, the most important dance festival of the Jaintia tribes. This festival tour is also an invocation to God, seeking his blessings for a bumper harvest. In this festival young women chose their male partner and they live in one house for compatibility test. Like Behdienkhlam Lupercalia is also a fertility celebration. Lupercalia survived the initial rise of Christianity and but was outlawed-as it was deemed “un-Christian”–at the end of the 5th century, when Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine’s Day
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Valentine’s is popularly symbolised by the Roman God of love, Cupid, along with hearts which symbolise love. It was believed that mating season for birds started in mid-February and so they birds also symbolised this day. Also, chocolates and red roses became traditional gifts for one’s partner. Valentine’s Day falls on Thursday this year and will be celebrated by thousands of couples throughout the world. Valentine’s Day is preceded with the Valentine’s week, wherein each day of the week leading to February 14 celebrates love. The various days of the Valentine’s week are- Rose Day (February 7), followed by Propose Day (February 8), Chocolate Day (February 9), Teddy Day (February 10), Promise Day (February 11), Hug Day (February 12), Kiss Day (February 13) and finally the Valentine’s Day on February 14. It was not until much later, however, that the day became definitively associated with love. Couples post their ‘romantic evenings’ all over social media and there is a sea of reels. Broadcasting their relationship to the world seems like a craze for living in it and enjoying each other some are now complaining that the members of Pro-Valentine group are female-centric. Anti-Valentine’s Day crusade which is going on for several years also argue that Valentine Day actually creates more problems in relationships than any good that it does. For couple, it can be a cauldron of unmet expectations and an excuse to not be sincerely romantic the other 364 days of the year and it becomes more of a competition. On Valentine Day we are somehow pressured to be grossly commercial.
Plethora of advertisements for buying Diamond ring or Five Star hotel holidays create problems for the young lovers who are still unemployed and no less so for the middle class people. Such costly valentine day celebration is beyond their reach. Another great competition is sending messages of love. Crafting a good love message becomes a challenge for many. They copy from each other and sometimes same message goes viral. Preparing special candle light dinner can be intimidating. Sophisticated sweets on romantic night especially heart shaped chocolates and cakes are planned by some. You love or hate, heart accessories cannot be ignored. One interesting survey brings out a savoury fact on pet. It reveals that 23% of single women would rather spend Valentine Day with their pet than their romantic partner while only 7% of single men say the same. It is a wrong perception that Valentine Day is for unmarried people. Some half–broken relationships are tuned up during the Valentine waves. Seasonal cards and songs especially designed for Valentine Day can be matter for research on Romance and Marital relationship.
When Valentine Day has become inclusive of friends and family to show how much you care and love them, companies have seized the opportunity to fit their products and services into the Valentine Day period to benefit from the sales boost as it continues to grow each year. In the fifteenth century, people started sending formal messages to their loved one on this day, and by late seventies, cards which were been commercially printed were used to celebrate Valentine’s Day. In the United States, the first commercial Valentines were printed by the mid-eighteenth century. This craze is now growing rapidly and Whatsapp, Instagram and Facebook are over inundated by valentine messages and posts adorned with selfies of lovers. In fact, now married people celebrate the day no less than their unmarried counterparts. The idea of walking around in stores is hanging over them like an albatross. To combat the hype of commercialism and rituals One Anti-Valentine’s Day supporter wrote “You can love someone any day of your life”. (The author is an International Visiting Professor USA and a trilingual poet & may be reached at profratanbhattacharjee@gmail.com)
