The Dark History of Valentine’s Day Everyone Needs To Know

Valentine’s Day 2019 is making the buzz all over the world. Online and offline stores have been stuffed with gifts, goodies, and everything in between on Love.

Couples are busy planning long love weekends while young love-birds are seeking internet gurus for teaching them ” how to impress your crush” this Valentine’s Day 2019.

But do you know why Valentine’s day is celebrated every year on 14 February?

Valentine’s Day is also called Saint Valentine’s Day. According to historical records, in the third century AD, there was a Christian priest named Valentine who stood up against then-Roman Emperor Claudius II Gothicus.
The emperor was nicknamed Claudius the Cruel because of his tyrant behaviour and his tendency for getting into futile wars.
Claudis put a ban on marriages and engagements in Rome so that single men can join his army. However, Valentine discarded the orders of the emperor and conducted marriages of soldiers secretly before they went off to war.
Valentine was executed for his actions but his sacrifice for young people to get bonded in the holy matrimony is remembered even centuries after his death.

Dark History Of Valentine’s Day

In the modern era, Valentine’s Day is a time to celebrate romance and love and every good thing in-between. But as you read above the origins of this festival is a long lost story. Here we present you the dark version of the day of love.

It goes like this, in the olden times, from Feb. 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. In the festival, men used to sacrifice a goat and a dog, then whipped women with remains of the animals they had just killed.

As per historians, during this time, young women would actually line up so that the men could hit them as they believed would bring fertility to them.

Further, the dehumanising festival included a matchmaking lottery, in which young men were coupled up with the names of women from a jar.

It was only in the 5th century when the Pope named Pope Gelasius I scrapped the event by combining St. Valentine’s Day with Lupercalia.