Where did Valentine’s Day come from?

Where did Valentine’s Day come from?

Before you read: some questions to help you think about the topic and the words you might need.

Do you know where Valentine’s day began?

What is your opinion of Valentine’s day?

Valentine’s Day is a time when people show feelings of love, affection and friendship. It is celebrated in many ways worldwide and is on February 14 each year.

What do people do?

Many people around the world celebrate Valentine’s Day by showing the people they love that they love them. Some people take their loved ones for a romantic dinner at a restaurant while others may choose this day to propose or get married. Many people give greeting cards, chocolates, jewelry or flowers, particularly roses, to their lovers on Valentine’s Day.

It is also a time to show love for friends in some social circles and cultures. For example, Valentine's Day in Finland is about “Friend's day”, which is more about remembering all friends rather than looking only at romance. Valentine's Day in Guatemala is known as Day of Love and Friendship. It is similar to Valentine’s Day customs and traditions countries such as the United States, but it is also a time for many to show their love for their friends.

Public life

Valentine’s Day is not a public holiday in many countries, including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. However, restaurants, hotels and shopping centers may be busy around this time of the year.

Background

The beginnings of how Valentine's Day began are not known very well but many believe that it stems from the story of St Valentine, a Roman priest who was martyred on or around February 14 in the year 270 CE., and is about how he became the saint of lovers. It is still a mystery, but one belief is that the church used the day of St Valentine’s martyrdom to make Christian the old Roman Lupercalia, a pagan festival held around the middle of February.

The ancient very old time event included putting girls’ names in a box and letting the boys take those names out. Couples would then be paired off until the following year. The Christian church replaced saints’ names for girls’ names in hope that the participant or member would model his life after the saint whose name he drew. However, it was once again girls’ names that ended up in the box by the 16th century.

 Eventually the custom of sending anonymous cards or messages to those whom one loved or admired became the normal way of celebrating Valentine’s Day.

There was an increase in interest in Valentine's Day, first in the United States and then in Canada, in the mid-19th century. Early versions of Valentine cards made using satin and lace and ornamented with flowers, ribbons, and images of cupids or birds appeared in England in the 1880s.

Symbols

Hearts, the colors red and pink, roses, images and statues of cupids, and cupids’ bows and arrows symbolize the feeling of romance and love on Valentine’s Day. Cupid is usually portrayed as a small winged figure with a bow and arrow. In mythology, he uses his arrow to strike or hit the hearts of people. People who fall in love are sometimes said to be “struck by Cupid's arrow”.

So you see, the day is all about looking at and thinking about love, romance, appreciation and friendship.

Try to guess the meaning of the words in bold and match them with their closest meaning from the choices in the right. Some of the answers are very close and have similar meaning. The meaning of these words is how they are used in the reading. Some of these words have different meanings in the dictionary depending on how they are used.

 The answers are below the table.