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Valentine’s Day is a time to celebrate romance and love with all the kissy-faces in the world, flowers and chocolates. The origins of this festival of candy and cupids, however, are quite literally dark, bloody — and a bit disturbing.
From Feb. 13 to 15, the Romans pertook in the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain.
The Roman romantics ‘were drunk and naked’. Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them, as they believed this would make them fertile.
The brutal fiesta included a matchmaking lottery, in which young men drew the names of women from a jar. The couple would then be officiated for the duration of the festival — or longer, if the match was right.
The ancient Romans may also be responsible for the name of our modern day of love. Emperor Claudius II executed two men — both named Valentine — on Feb. 14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D. Their martyrdom was honored by the Catholic Church with the celebration of St. Valentine’s Day.
Later, Pope Gelasius I muddled things in the 5th century by combining St. Valentine’s Day with Lupercalia to expel the pagan rituals. But the festival was more of a theatrical interpretation of what it had once been as it was a little more of a drunken revel, but the Christians put clothes back on it. That didn’t stop it from being a day of fertility and love.