People celebrate Valentine’s day to express their love with gifts and greetings to their lovers. But this ritual started around the 14th century. The holiday of 14th February came into existence with the Roman festival of Lupercalia, held in mid-February. The festival celebrated the oncoming of spring, fertility and pairing women with men by lottery. Roman priests would sacrifice goats for fertility and dogs for purification. They would remove the goat’s skin and cut them into strips and dip them into the blood, taking them into streets and gently hit the women and crops with the goat’s hide. Roman women didn’t have any apprehensions by getting slapped with goat’s hide as they felt that it’d increase their fertility in the next year. 

The festival was concluded with women putting their names in an urn for the city’s bachelors to choose a name from it to get paired with each other for a year. Often these paired couples ended up getting married. 

Several martyrs’ names were Valentine, but this day is specifically dedicated to a priest martyred by Emperor Claudius II Gothicus. The emperor observed that unmarried men performed better in battles than married men and therefore prohibited them from getting married. Saint Valentine who served during the 3rd century in Rome defied this law and secretly got the young couples married. When the emperor came to know about this, he ordered to behead the saint. Some believe that the holiday was declared after the Saint Valentine of Terni, a bishop who too was martyred by Emperor Claudius II Gothicus. 

Some other legends say that Valentine was assassinated as he helped Christians break out of the barbaric Roman prison where they were tormented mentally and physically. Another story says a prisoner named Valentine wrote a letter to the jailor’s daughter who had come to meet him in his confinement. He wrote a letter to her before his death which was signed “From your Valentine,” which became a synonym for lovers on Valentine’s day and symbolised romantic gestures. 

The festival of Lupercalia was outlawed as it was considered absurd and unlikely to be Christian. At the end of the 5th century, Pope Gelasius declared 14th February as St. Valentine’s Day. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote “Parliament of Foules” wherein there was the first mention of Valentine’s day. 

By the middle of the 18th century, it became common to exchange small gifts among friends or lovers of all classes. In 1900 printed greeting cards replaced written cards with the advancement in printing technology. 

Americans started exchanging hand-made Valentine’s day cards in the 1700s. Esther A. Howland sold the first mass-produced Valentine’s card in America in the 1840s. She was known as “Mother of the Valentine” as she innovatively made different creations with ribbons, lace, and pictures known as scrap. 

This day is widely celebrated in countries like America, Britain, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Mexico, South Korea and France. 

Every festival is incomplete without some delicious food and Valentine’s day is no different. Celebrate this Valentine’s day at home by making some delish food that you and your valentine can enjoy together. You both can cook a meal together or a dessert and bond over food. Now isn’t that an absolutely yummilicious idea?