February 14, 2025 • 11 mins
Emotional attachment is thousands of years old, but it actually started off with apes! For humans, Valentine’s Day started off as a blood-soaked pagan fertility festival loaded with alcohol, nudity, and blood! On the flip side, the romance element is a pretty recent invention. You can thank the Victorians for that. Plus, find out who sent the first Valentine!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
As we celebrate Valentine's Day, I wanted to refresh a
popular backstory episode from a year ago, and I've added
a whole lot of new info and some interesting sidebars.
All right, big si here. Romance sounds really great, right,
It's got all of the upside of love and sex
and none of the downside. But there was a time
(00:20):
when Valentine's Day was celebrated really differently. Imagine a guy
you may or may not partner with, wanting to increase
your fertility, so he sacrifices an animal and then slaps
you over and over again with a bloody hide, and
you kind of like it. He does the same to
others as well. I'm Patty Steele. How Valentine's Day has evolved.
(00:41):
That's next on the backstory. We're back with the backstory.
We all want a little romance in our lives, but
it has meant different things to different people at different times.
It played out really differently depending on when you lived
these days. A lot of us give romance the side eye,
(01:02):
but secretly, who knows what's in our hearts. Here's the thing.
Attachment is ancient. In fact, apes were the first to
evolve the ability to become emotionally attached to one another
as humans appeared on the scene. We maintain those attachments,
mostly because it helped us and the apes survive. Everybody
needs a team, right, it takes a village. Later, through
(01:24):
thousands of years and right up until the seventeen hundred's,
marriage became a thing, but it was totally about business.
Romance wasn't even a consideration now. The early celebration of
a holiday like Valentine's Day beganning Roman times in the
sixth century BC with a very unromantic and very bloody
pagan fertility festival. Maybe it was fun, I don't know.
(01:47):
Every year between February thirteenth and fifteenth, Romans celebrated Lupercalia
by sacrificing animals and then running naked through the streets
slapping women with the bloody hides of those animals, which
they believed made the women more fertile, and women went
right along with it gladly. Later in those same festivities,
(02:07):
women would be paired off with men by lottery talk
about romance. In addition to the big fertility festivals centered
around February fourteenth, the day is celebrated because it was
believed that February fourteenth was the day most birds returned
for spring and picked their mates. And there's Saint Valentine himself,
born in Rome in two twenty six. He was an
(02:29):
early Christian and bought himself some trouble with the Roman
Empire for ministering to other Christians, a no no under
Roman law. He was tossed in jail, but continued his
outreach and allegedly healed his jailer's daughter, Julia, of her blindness.
There's also word that he performed weddings for Christian soldiers
who were forbidden to marry. That was another no note.
(02:51):
Legends say Saint Valentine would cut pieces of parchment into
a heart shape to remind these men of their vows
and God's love. He gave them to those soldiers and
persecuted Christians. There are even stories that say Saint Valentine
himself wrote the very first Valentine. It was a letter
to Julia that now healed Jowler's daughter, saying farewell to
her before his execution, which he signed from your Valentine.
(03:16):
Sounds a little sketchy to me, but he was beheaded
the next day. He was executed, in fact on February fourteenth,
two sixty nine, but obviously not forgotten. In fact, in
keeping with how attached Italian Catholics are to their saints,
Saint Valentine's skull, crowned with flowers, is on display in
the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmodine, and that's in Rome.
(03:38):
Other relics of him are in Whitefriars Street, Carmelite Church
in Dublin, Ireland, a really popular place to go on
Valentine's Day if you're looking for love. In fact, there's
even a book there in which you can write about
your desire for romance. So when did romance enter the scene?
Got to go back to relationships For thousands of years
In most societies, men dealt with them money, getting the food,
(04:01):
overall decision making. Women figured out how to make the
money work. They took care of the home and children
and social obligations. Romance, yeah, not so much. If you
had money. Marriage was about inheritance, land, politics, business. Children
and wealthy people often found romance, but it was pretty
much always outside of marriage and mostly just for men,
(04:22):
since women had to worry about pregnancy. If you didn't
have money, it was about getting the best deal possible
from your intended everything from a little bit of money,
land or at least access to it, and somebody'd have
children with You'd put together whatever kind of home you
could manage and run it with traditional responsibilities, divvied up
in the traditional way. Not very romantic, but extremely practical.
(04:46):
Now here's the thing. People entering a marriage didn't really
expect anything different unless you were Romeo and Juliet, who
treasured love beyond family. And we all know how that
ended for them, which was kind of the point of
that story. Thank you will shakes. And there were other exceptions.
In fact, in fourteen fifteen, the Duke of Orleans wrote
what's more traditionally called the very First Valentine. It was
(05:08):
a poem the twenty one year old duke sent to
his wife from prison locked up in the Tower of
London after being captured in a battle with the British.
He wrote, I am already sick with love, my very
gentle Valentine. Unfortunately, he was locked up for another twenty
five years and his wife died five years before he
was released. But by the seventeen hundreds, romantic feelings finally
(05:30):
started to be taken into account. For most people. When
it came to marriage, still there wasn't much in the
way of dating. It was referred to as courting, and
the intention was very different. The goal of courtship was
always marriage, so family really involved in the decision. It
just a courting gave both the man and the woman
the opportunity to see if there were feelings. In fact,
(05:51):
in some cases, young couples were allowed to go to
bed together, but they were fully dressed and they had
a thing called a bundling board between him. It was
actually a big board that kept them from touching but
allowed them to lie together in the dark and talk.
They also had bundling sacks that were basically sleeping bags
for two, but they were sewn all the way up
(06:12):
the middle, again no touching. If the couple decided there
were feelings and the man made a commitment, he had
a really, really tough time getting out of it if
he changed his mind, unless the woman released him from
his obligation. It was called breach of promise if you
weren't officially released. But still, feelings became more important, and
that's when Valentine's Day became a thing. Love letters and
(06:35):
gifts were away to win somebody's heart. The Irish poet
and playwright Oscar Wilde wrote this in a love letter
to his wife a few months after they were married,
telling her the distance keeps our lips from kissing, but
indeed your bodily presence here would not make you more real.
For I feel your fingers in my hair, your cheek
against mine. The air is full of the music of
(06:57):
your voice. We are mingled as one in exquisite ecstasy,
now in fairness. Just a few years later he sent
equally beautiful words to his male lover. Clearly the man
knew how to write a Valentine. The absolute peak of
the romantic approach to Valentine's Day began in the late
seventeen hundreds, when people started to construct elaborate puzzle Valentines
(07:20):
with folded paper, which, when each section was unfolded, revealed
more about the sender's feelings. Then came the eighteen hundreds, when,
in an effort to outdo competitors, guys began to really
slather on the romance. Valentine's cards reached their peak in
the mid eighteen hundreds, since the mail service was finally
reliable and there was really no other way to reach out.
(07:42):
Incredibly artistic Valentines showed up decorated with everything from peacock
feathers to lace to jewels, accompanied by very mushy but
beautiful poetry or prose. Sometimes they quote their favorite romantic poet,
like Elizabeth Barrett. She published her love poems to her
future husband Robert Brown. The first line of her Sonnets
(08:02):
from the Portuguese read how do I love THEE? Let
me count the ways I love THEE? To the depth
and breadth and height my soul can reach. Wow, oh mantic?
So how else might you celebrate in those days? While
Victorian started the tradition of giving flowers, especially red roses,
for Valentine's Day, still very popular today, they gave jewelry,
(08:23):
which has never gone out of fashion. And you might
also swoon over a box of chocolates. In a smart
business move, Richard Cadbury of Cadbury Chocolate created the first
heart shaped box of chocolates in eighteen sixty one, trying
to drive up sales for the family business, and boy
did it work. Now thirty six million heart shaped boxes
(08:44):
of chocolate are sold every year. By the way, it
wasn't all flowers and chocolates. During the Victorian era, if
you didn't appreciate the attention of an admirer, you could
send a vinegar valentine, also called penny dreadfuls. They were
meant to put a stop to unwanted attention. By the
time Hollywood got involved in romance, they sold us on
the idea of romantic forever love and don't you love
(09:06):
the happy ending, the happily ever after storyline? Question? Is
is it realistic? These days? We still celebrate Valentine's Day,
but we've begun to lay off the mushy part of it.
Did you know that today teachers get more Valentines than
any other group, followed by kids, moms, then wives, and
of course our fur babies. Some even celebrate Gallentine's Day,
(09:29):
usually February thirteenth, a time to celebrate your best female friends,
who was created by the writers of the TV show
Parks and rec And not to be outdone, there's Malantine
Day for guys on February twelfth, where it is it
involves stuff like paintballing, axe throwing, and beer, again, all
about celebrating your pals. In fact, backing that up is
(09:50):
the Greek philosopher Plato, who said the highest form of
love was actually our non sexual, non romantic attachment to
another person. That's so called brotherly love, which we call
platonic love, named after of course, Plato. He believed that passion, romance,
and sex make us do stupid stuff here here, and
that love between family members or close friends is the
(10:13):
perfect attachment. Hard to argue with that, right. The thing is,
at the end of the day, we're all looking to
feel something, right, that adrenaline rush, that little flutter and
warmth when you see someone you're attracted to and when
they lock eyes with you. Romance does that for us.
So Happy Valentine's Day, whatever that means to you. Hope
(10:37):
you're enjoying The Backstory with Patty Steele. Follow or subscribe
for free to get new episodes delivered automatically, and feel
free to DM me if you have a story you'd
like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and
on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory
is a production of iHeartMedia, Premieer Networks, the Elvis Durand Group,
(10:58):
and Steel Trap Perdus. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our
writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.
Feel free to reach out to me with comments and
even story suggestions on Instagram at real Patty Steele and
on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the
Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history you didn't
(11:20):
know you needed to know.
As we celebrate Valentine's Day, I wanted to refresh a
popular backstory episode from a year ago, and I've added
a whole lot of new info and some interesting sidebars.
All right, big si here. Romance sounds really great, right,
It's got all of the upside of love and sex
and none of the downside. But there was a time
(00:20):
when Valentine's Day was celebrated really differently. Imagine a guy
you may or may not partner with, wanting to increase
your fertility, so he sacrifices an animal and then slaps
you over and over again with a bloody hide, and
you kind of like it. He does the same to
others as well. I'm Patty Steele. How Valentine's Day has evolved.
(00:41):
That's next on the backstory. We're back with the backstory.
We all want a little romance in our lives, but
it has meant different things to different people at different times.
It played out really differently depending on when you lived
these days. A lot of us give romance the side eye,
(01:02):
but secretly, who knows what's in our hearts. Here's the thing.
Attachment is ancient. In fact, apes were the first to
evolve the ability to become emotionally attached to one another
as humans appeared on the scene. We maintain those attachments,
mostly because it helped us and the apes survive. Everybody
needs a team, right, it takes a village. Later, through
(01:24):
thousands of years and right up until the seventeen hundred's,
marriage became a thing, but it was totally about business.
Romance wasn't even a consideration now. The early celebration of
a holiday like Valentine's Day beganning Roman times in the
sixth century BC with a very unromantic and very bloody
pagan fertility festival. Maybe it was fun, I don't know.
(01:47):
Every year between February thirteenth and fifteenth, Romans celebrated Lupercalia
by sacrificing animals and then running naked through the streets
slapping women with the bloody hides of those animals, which
they believed made the women more fertile, and women went
right along with it gladly. Later in those same festivities,
(02:07):
women would be paired off with men by lottery talk
about romance. In addition to the big fertility festivals centered
around February fourteenth, the day is celebrated because it was
believed that February fourteenth was the day most birds returned
for spring and picked their mates. And there's Saint Valentine himself,
born in Rome in two twenty six. He was an
(02:29):
early Christian and bought himself some trouble with the Roman
Empire for ministering to other Christians, a no no under
Roman law. He was tossed in jail, but continued his
outreach and allegedly healed his jailer's daughter, Julia, of her blindness.
There's also word that he performed weddings for Christian soldiers
who were forbidden to marry. That was another no note.
(02:51):
Legends say Saint Valentine would cut pieces of parchment into
a heart shape to remind these men of their vows
and God's love. He gave them to those soldiers and
persecuted Christians. There are even stories that say Saint Valentine
himself wrote the very first Valentine. It was a letter
to Julia that now healed Jowler's daughter, saying farewell to
her before his execution, which he signed from your Valentine.
(03:16):
Sounds a little sketchy to me, but he was beheaded
the next day. He was executed, in fact on February fourteenth,
two sixty nine, but obviously not forgotten. In fact, in
keeping with how attached Italian Catholics are to their saints,
Saint Valentine's skull, crowned with flowers, is on display in
the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmodine, and that's in Rome.
(03:38):
Other relics of him are in Whitefriars Street, Carmelite Church
in Dublin, Ireland, a really popular place to go on
Valentine's Day if you're looking for love. In fact, there's
even a book there in which you can write about
your desire for romance. So when did romance enter the scene?
Got to go back to relationships For thousands of years
In most societies, men dealt with them money, getting the food,
(04:01):
overall decision making. Women figured out how to make the
money work. They took care of the home and children
and social obligations. Romance, yeah, not so much. If you
had money. Marriage was about inheritance, land, politics, business. Children
and wealthy people often found romance, but it was pretty
much always outside of marriage and mostly just for men,
(04:22):
since women had to worry about pregnancy. If you didn't
have money, it was about getting the best deal possible
from your intended everything from a little bit of money,
land or at least access to it, and somebody'd have
children with You'd put together whatever kind of home you
could manage and run it with traditional responsibilities, divvied up
in the traditional way. Not very romantic, but extremely practical.
(04:46):
Now here's the thing. People entering a marriage didn't really
expect anything different unless you were Romeo and Juliet, who
treasured love beyond family. And we all know how that
ended for them, which was kind of the point of
that story. Thank you will shakes. And there were other exceptions.
In fact, in fourteen fifteen, the Duke of Orleans wrote
what's more traditionally called the very First Valentine. It was
(05:08):
a poem the twenty one year old duke sent to
his wife from prison locked up in the Tower of
London after being captured in a battle with the British.
He wrote, I am already sick with love, my very
gentle Valentine. Unfortunately, he was locked up for another twenty
five years and his wife died five years before he
was released. But by the seventeen hundreds, romantic feelings finally
(05:30):
started to be taken into account. For most people. When
it came to marriage, still there wasn't much in the
way of dating. It was referred to as courting, and
the intention was very different. The goal of courtship was
always marriage, so family really involved in the decision. It
just a courting gave both the man and the woman
the opportunity to see if there were feelings. In fact,
(05:51):
in some cases, young couples were allowed to go to
bed together, but they were fully dressed and they had
a thing called a bundling board between him. It was
actually a big board that kept them from touching but
allowed them to lie together in the dark and talk.
They also had bundling sacks that were basically sleeping bags
for two, but they were sewn all the way up
(06:12):
the middle, again no touching. If the couple decided there
were feelings and the man made a commitment, he had
a really, really tough time getting out of it if
he changed his mind, unless the woman released him from
his obligation. It was called breach of promise if you
weren't officially released. But still, feelings became more important, and
that's when Valentine's Day became a thing. Love letters and
(06:35):
gifts were away to win somebody's heart. The Irish poet
and playwright Oscar Wilde wrote this in a love letter
to his wife a few months after they were married,
telling her the distance keeps our lips from kissing, but
indeed your bodily presence here would not make you more real.
For I feel your fingers in my hair, your cheek
against mine. The air is full of the music of
(06:57):
your voice. We are mingled as one in exquisite ecstasy,
now in fairness. Just a few years later he sent
equally beautiful words to his male lover. Clearly the man
knew how to write a Valentine. The absolute peak of
the romantic approach to Valentine's Day began in the late
seventeen hundreds, when people started to construct elaborate puzzle Valentines
(07:20):
with folded paper, which, when each section was unfolded, revealed
more about the sender's feelings. Then came the eighteen hundreds, when,
in an effort to outdo competitors, guys began to really
slather on the romance. Valentine's cards reached their peak in
the mid eighteen hundreds, since the mail service was finally
reliable and there was really no other way to reach out.
(07:42):
Incredibly artistic Valentines showed up decorated with everything from peacock
feathers to lace to jewels, accompanied by very mushy but
beautiful poetry or prose. Sometimes they quote their favorite romantic poet,
like Elizabeth Barrett. She published her love poems to her
future husband Robert Brown. The first line of her Sonnets
(08:02):
from the Portuguese read how do I love THEE? Let
me count the ways I love THEE? To the depth
and breadth and height my soul can reach. Wow, oh mantic?
So how else might you celebrate in those days? While
Victorian started the tradition of giving flowers, especially red roses,
for Valentine's Day, still very popular today, they gave jewelry,
(08:23):
which has never gone out of fashion. And you might
also swoon over a box of chocolates. In a smart
business move, Richard Cadbury of Cadbury Chocolate created the first
heart shaped box of chocolates in eighteen sixty one, trying
to drive up sales for the family business, and boy
did it work. Now thirty six million heart shaped boxes
(08:44):
of chocolate are sold every year. By the way, it
wasn't all flowers and chocolates. During the Victorian era, if
you didn't appreciate the attention of an admirer, you could
send a vinegar valentine, also called penny dreadfuls. They were
meant to put a stop to unwanted attention. By the
time Hollywood got involved in romance, they sold us on
the idea of romantic forever love and don't you love
(09:06):
the happy ending, the happily ever after storyline? Question? Is
is it realistic? These days? We still celebrate Valentine's Day,
but we've begun to lay off the mushy part of it.
Did you know that today teachers get more Valentines than
any other group, followed by kids, moms, then wives, and
of course our fur babies. Some even celebrate Gallentine's Day,
(09:29):
usually February thirteenth, a time to celebrate your best female friends,
who was created by the writers of the TV show
Parks and rec And not to be outdone, there's Malantine
Day for guys on February twelfth, where it is it
involves stuff like paintballing, axe throwing, and beer, again, all
about celebrating your pals. In fact, backing that up is
(09:50):
the Greek philosopher Plato, who said the highest form of
love was actually our non sexual, non romantic attachment to
another person. That's so called brotherly love, which we call
platonic love, named after of course, Plato. He believed that passion, romance,
and sex make us do stupid stuff here here, and
that love between family members or close friends is the
(10:13):
perfect attachment. Hard to argue with that, right. The thing is,
at the end of the day, we're all looking to
feel something, right, that adrenaline rush, that little flutter and
warmth when you see someone you're attracted to and when
they lock eyes with you. Romance does that for us.
So Happy Valentine's Day, whatever that means to you. Hope
(10:37):
you're enjoying The Backstory with Patty Steele. Follow or subscribe
for free to get new episodes delivered automatically, and feel
free to DM me if you have a story you'd
like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and
on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory
is a production of iHeartMedia, Premieer Networks, the Elvis Durand Group,
(10:58):
and Steel Trap Perdus. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our
writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.
Feel free to reach out to me with comments and
even story suggestions on Instagram at real Patty Steele and
on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the
Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history you didn't
(11:20):
know you needed to know.
Host
Patty Steele
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