TO BE OR NOT TO BE YOUR VALENCRIME? THE DARK ORIGINS AND VIOLENT PRESENT OF VALENTINE’S DAY

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Roses are red, 
violets are blue, 
do animals get killed,
because of You?

Valentine’s Day—a day loved by some and cursed by some. This can be for purely personal reasons, such as resisting the social pressure that is supposed to determine the value of a relationship, or the contempt of our capitalist system, which is built on the emotional level of people.

What many aren’t aware of is that Valentine’s day has very cruel and inhumane roots built on oppression, harm, and murder of both human and non-human animals. Oppression, exploitation, and murder of non-human animals are, in fact, still present today. 

In this blog post, we’ll briefly go through the history of Valentine’s Day, expose some important not widely known facts, prove some essential points, and explain that there is hypocrisy and not love in the air when celebrated a certain way—still today. 

THE HISTORY OF VALENTINE’S DAY

Like mentioned before, Valentine’s Day has quite some dark and bloody origins taking us back to ancient Rome. The exact origin isn’t yet known but can be traced back as far as the 6th century B.C.

➸ For a full-length article, I can recommend you to read this one here!

On February 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia—an ancient pagan festival. Lupercalia was a bloody, violent, and sexually-charged celebration awash with animal sacrifice, random matchmaking, and coupling in the hopes of warding off evil spirits and infertility.

Luperci, a group of Roman priests sacrificed one or more male goats—a representation of sexuality—and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain, as they believed (and were made to believe) this would make them fertile. Afterward, the foreheads of two naked Luperci were smeared with the animals’ blood using the bloody, sacrificial knife. The blood was then removed with a piece of milk-soaked wool (by now I have stopped counting all the animal-derived sources, just saying).

The brutal fete included a matchmaking lottery, in which young men drew the names of women from a jar. The couple would then be coupled up for the duration of the festival—or longer if the match was right.

HOW VALENTINE'S DAY CAME TO BE

If you start searching the internet for one story, you’ll be disappointed. There are plenty of stories about Valentine, or better said the many Valentines (as the name was quite popular so it seems). One Saint Valentine was supposedly a Roman priest who performed secret Christian weddings against the wishes of the authorities in the third century, who then got tortured and decapitated on February 14 by Roman Emperor Claudius II (of pagan religion). 

Lupercalia survived the initial rise of Christianity but was outlawed—as it was deemed “un-Christian”—at the end of the 5th century, when Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine’s Day.

It is interesting that the early accounts of the two Valentines are typical martyrdom stories, stressing the saints’ miracles and gruesome deaths but containing not a word about romance. So how did that happen? As the years went on, the day grew sweeter. During the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed that February 14 was the beginning of birds’ mating season (for once a joyful animal context), which added to the romance and love theme. It was poet Geoffrey Chaucer (1381–1382, “The Parlament of Fouls” probably the first Valentine’s poem ever) and William Shakespeare romanticized it in their work, and it gained popularity throughout Britain and the rest of Europe.

TRADITIONS AND OPPRESSION

It doesn’t surprise me at all that this celebration and tradition, like many others all across the globe of any culture and religion, are based on ancient (religious) beliefs that mainly involve animal sacrifice and violence against other animals. I think we can all agree that we are glad that ancient times are over (for our own sake) and that we have evolved in many many ways. Nevertheless, today’s celebration of Valentine’s Day masks an enormous amount of exploitation and murder that is widely unknown or simply ignored— for the supposed benefit and advantage of human people.

(UN)HIDDEN EXPLOITATION AND MURDER

Through a few checked statistics on the web, it is clear which gifts are the most popular when it comes to celebrating. Apart from flowers and (gift) cards, most people prefer to spend their money on restaurants, sweets, especially chocolate or perfume, which in most cases are directly and obviously or sometimes less obviously linked to animal exploitation and murder.

Eating animal body parts (meat) is a very obvious form of putting taste before life and not exactly a romantic, but a rather disgusting gesture of proof or confession of love; by ending the life of an innocent someone. In fact, there is nothing more unromantic and unattractive than putting the breast milk of cows, goats, or sheep into a nice heart-shaped box of chocolates and your mouth. Also gifting perfume most commonly tested on animals dwelling in laboratories is not a cute way at all of delivering the love-message of “I respect, appreciate and love you, babe”. 

DOES YOUR CHOCOLATE GIFT SCREAM VIOLENCE?

For cow’s milk, the calves are taken away from their mothers so that they do not drink the milk that is for them. For the rest of their lives, female cows get forcefully impregnated by humans every year (AI = Artificial Insemination) to produce milk. If they no longer produce and thus no longer bring profit (or less than expected), then they are killed.

Male calves are either killed immediately and sold as veal or their skin is processed into bags, shoes, furniture, or they are raised so that their lifeless bodies end up nicely packaged on supermarket shelves carrying the label “organic,” “grass-fed,” or “bio” to make people believe they were killed “humanely”.

To hit the nail on the head and call a spade a spade, there is nothing more hypocritical, unbalanced, and wrong about celebrating “The Day Of Love And Romance” with violence to others. And realizing this (probably just now—I’ve been there myself) should actually make us think and become a creative and logical impulse in choosing the ethically right gift. I mean, after all, the options are eeendless, aren’t they? Yes, they are.

WHAT TO GIFT THAT DOES NOT CAUSE HARM

I am not sure if you want any romantic advice from my end, but I’m glad you asked. Well, at least you are still here after all.

I mean, you know best what the person you desire touches, appreciates, and loves. Buy vegan chocolate or treats, visit a fully plant-based restaurant (if possible), gift living plants, or simply write a love/appreciation letter, to whomever you want to put a smile on their face and a light in their heart. 

And if you rather spend February 14 at home with your beloved non-human animal companion, so it be. That’s actually what I’m going to do.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

Whether you choose to celebrate Valentine’s Day or not, be reminded that you don’t need one specific day to be reminded of how much you love; and love someone.

Each day we can give, feel and spread love instead of hate by choosing justice, love, and empathy, by choosing to think, reflect and act a certain way. And this includes all animals.

We all need to be aware of the suffering we are directly and indirectly causing, and we need to be aware of our role in an oppressive system and consciously and actively choose to work against it.

Instead of following up on old traditions, we should invest in and carry on new ones for the better. Traditions change, they need to change. Looking at the history of Valentine’s Day, it did and had to change as well, didn't it? So what’s holding you back? 

Not a thing, great! Here are some tips for …

CULINARY PLANT-BASED TREATS

To prove to you once more how easy it is to choose a plant-based breakfast, lunch, snacks, or dinner … and that there is no excuse for animal (ab)use ...

➸ Livekindly - 19 Romantic Vegan Recipes for Valentine’s Day
➸ Choose Veg - 35 Vegan Comfort Dishes for Valentine’s Day That Won’t Disappoint

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NOT YET VEGAN?

Please check out this page and make the change!

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Please note:

➸ when the term "human" is used, then human animals are meant by it, and the same applies to the term "animal", who are non-human animals.

➸ text and illustrations are intellectual property of Kerstin Brueller. Sharing the content for private purposes is appreciated and always to be provided with a copyright. It is prohibited to copy and share it for commercial purposes. Please contact me for a collaboration, if you are unsure or have any further questions. Thanks for your understanding.

➸ I personally care much about symbolism and the meaning of certain shapes and metaphors. The images and interpretations are the representation of my own imagination.

SOURCES

NRP - The Dark Origins Of Valentine’s Day
History - The History of Valentine’s Day
History - 6 Surprising Facts About St. Valentine