Valentine's Day is one convoluted holiday
People in the United States spent some $23.9 billion on Valentine’s Day in 2022, up from $21.8 billion in 2021. Money goes to significant others, family members, friends, children’s classmates - and pets.
Men spend more than women. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), the average spent was $175.41 in 2022, down from a record per person of $196.31 in 2020.
In 2020, according to the NRF, people spent $2.4 billion on chocolates, $2.3 billion on flowers (mostly red roses), $5.8 billion on jewelry, $4.3 billion on dining out, $2.9 billion on clothing, $2 billion on gift cards and $1.3 billion on greeting cards.
About a third of consumers plan to use credit cards to pay for their purchases, according to Forbes. Now, financial planners are not the bosses of consumers, but charging more than you can afford and then paying interest on the charges is one way to make planners crazy.
Dark, bloody history
Regardless of curmudgeonly planners, “Valentine’s Day is a time to celebrate romance and love and kissy-face fealty,” says National Public Radio (NPR). “But the origins of the festival of candy and cupids are actually dark, bloody - and a bit muddled.”
Although no one has pinpointed the exact origin of the holiday, a place to start seems to be ancient Rome. According to NPR, the Roman romantics were drunk and naked, and, in a family newspaper, I will not go further into their animal sacrifices and debauchery.
In the third century, Roman Emperor Claudius II executed two men, both named Valentine, on Feb. 14 of different years. In a civilized observance, the Catholic Church honored their martyrdom by celebrating St. Valentine’s Day.
Fast forward 1,000 years, and Geoffrey Chaucer is credited with resurrecting the Valentine holiday with his poem, “The Parlement of Foules,” probably written in 1382. It features an assembly of birds gathered to choose their mates. But even Chaucer probably got the date wrong since the middle of February is an unlikely time for birds to mate in England. Scholars think he confused the February date with May 3, when a Bishop Valentine of Genoa was commemorated in 307 A.D.
Whatever circuitous routes it took, “Eventually the celebration made its way to the New World,” says NPR. When the Industrial Revolution brought factory-made cards, Hallmark mass produced them starting in 1903 and “Valentine’s Day was changed forever."
More murky history: Cupid. As one who misses most mythology questions on "Jeopardy!," I probably should not try to write how the Greek and Roman gods created Cupid, but here goes.
The Valentine Cupid is apparently a Roman interpretation of Eros, the Greek god of love. Originally, Eros was not a very good fellow and flew around creating havoc with his bow and arrow making people fall in and out of love. Then he morphed into a better fellow - who was handsome - in early art and literature.
Eros’s road to become the cherub-faced toddler with blonde curls on our Valentine’s bingo card twisted and turned.
Romans adopted and reinterpreted many Greek myths, and Eros was no exception. Once adopted by the Romans, Eros was renamed Cupid, which stems from the word “desire,” and became a chubby-winged child complete with bow and arrow.
The Romans decided that Cupid was a god born of Mercury, the messenger of the gods, and Venus, the goddess of love.
As for Cupid’s cosplaying a diaper, folklorist Kayla Mahoney says that Americans don’t like anything naked except the bald eagle.
The notion of giving red roses on Valentine’s Day is supposedly rooted in Greek mythology and is as convoluted as the holiday itself. Some say that the first red rose was created when the Greek goddess Aphrodite was scratched by a thorn of a white rose, and that rose turned red.
Folklorist Sara Cleto says that the first red rose grew on the ground where Adonis, Aphrodite’s lover, died and the goddess’s tears fell.
“Red is associated with passion and romantic love,” says journalist Elizabeth Yuko. She continues that red was especially cherished because red dye was expensive, hard to find and synonymous with royalty.
Chocolate, jewelry
Chocolates for Valentine’s Day? It could just be marketing genius, yet chocolate has been considered an aphrodisiac in many cultures for a long time. Supposedly, chocolate contains substances that make a beloved open to romance. The British Cadbury family made chocolate more affordable and put it in beautiful heart-shaped boxes for Valentine’s starting around 1860. This trend became a habit for many companies.
And jewelry? Well, giving jewelry on Valentine’s Day is the newest wrinkle and the most expensive. The custom seems to have started with advertising by the controversial DeBeers company associating Valentine’s Day with diamonds in the 1980s. The plan obviously worked and grew.
So, your guess is as good as mine about how Valentine’s Day evolved, how a cherub in a diaper floating with a bow and arrow became its mascot and why we Americans spend billions of dollars to celebrate.
Perhaps we are all romantics after all.
However your myths and money intersect on Feb. 14. Happy Valentine’s Day.
Martha Moore Hobson was an early Certified Financial Planner in the region. Although retired, she volunteers in the community.
This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Valentine's Day is one convoluted holiday
