A Satirical Fisking of a Legend
The Valentine’s Day started in the time of the Roman Empire. In ancient Rome, February 14th was a holiday to honor 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.
Juno was Jupiter’s wife. She was beautiful, emotionally unstable, jealous, narcissistic and vain. But Jupiter was the Alpha of all alphas. He was the top God. Therefore, she stayed with him despite his many, many affairs with younger, tighter and hotter ladies – both mortals and immortals alike. Hypergamy’s a bitch when you’re already the wife of the apex alpha. You cannot marry up any higher than the God of Gods…so you deal with being the Queen of his harem.
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.
An ancient, pagan version of spin the bottle? Cool.
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.
Claudius was the first Feminist to SMASH PATRIARCHY!
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…
You’d think the women of Pagan Rome would have rejoiced that there Emperor abolished the harsh enslavement of Hetero-normative, Patriarchal Marriage!?! But no…they still wanted to get married in secret anyway! Why were young Roman ladies so eager to subject themselves to the slavery of male privilege…even when it was against the law? Women’s studies professors still can’t figure out how to explain that one…
…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.
It could have been worse. He could have been no-fault divorced-ed and enslaved to a lifetime of supporting his ex-wife for alimony and child support while she got to bang Gladiators in what was once his house and in his former bed…
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 endeavored 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.
Somehow that custom got changed…could you imagine those ancient Romans men courting a maiden with the mentality of a modern day feminist-minded shrike? Why that young man had better take his maiden of choice to the most expensive feast in town, and he better shower her with gifts! Even if he does not have any money, he could still sign up for six months of indentured servitude so he can get her those gifts on credit! He’d better get her something…or she will make life for him utterly miserable with her nagging and complaining, and she’ll refuse to have sex with him to boot!
Perhaps those ancient Roman men stuck with such women on this day could simply pick a new name from the box, and NEXT the nagging entitlement princess.
Hmmm…perhaps there is something of ancient legends that can still teach us relevant lessons today.
Happy Valentines Day.
