TODAY, February 14, should not be in celebration of St Valentine. And not
only because such a person probably did not exist. Nor should it be a celebration
of monogamous, romantic love, let alone a minor feast day in the Christian
calendar.
Instead, it should be a day to celebrate entrepreneurs and retailers,
especially chocolatiers, florists and others involved in the personal gifts
business. And the individual to whom homage should be paid is Ester Howland,
the 19th century American artist, printer and cunning marketeer.
It was in 1850 that Ester, from Worcester in the state of Massachusetts, first hit on the idea of printing romantic cards in celebration of what was by then regarded as a day for romantically inclined gentlemen of standing to declare - usually anonymously - their love for the female they desired.
Since
the 17th century this was done via bouquets of flowers or elaborate, lace-decorated and often poetic professions of undying devotion.
Howland’s cards, attractive and inexpensive, rapidly became a major industry and the florists, chocolatiers, candy makers and others quickly followed on to create what, in the United States alone, is estimated to result in an annual $20bn in retail turnover.
Twice as nice in Japan
In Japan, the day has developed into a double
retail bonanza.
On February 14 Japanese women provide gifts of chocolates to the men in their lives. All the men. Because there are two forms of gift, Gini-choco and Honmei-choco.
The Gini version are given as an obligation to bosses, workmates and other
associates. Honmei chocolates, however, carry the romantic connotation and go
to husbands, lovers and those men who might be interested in entering these
categories.
In a cunning turn of the commercial screw, all of the men in Japan who
receive Gini and Honmei have to reciprocate with suitable gifts for the women
in their lives on “White Day”, March 14. All still done vaguely in the name of
Valentine, an apparently mythical saint conjured up by Pope Galasius I some 1
700 years ago in an attempt to stop an ancient festival of love, lust and
lechery much beloved of pagan Romans.
In then newly Christianised Rome, the imminent dawning of spring, and the
fertility it symbolised, was celebrated in mid-February. It was then that
eligible - and clearly available - young men would run near naked through the
streets of the city, apparently allowing themselves to be caught by anyone who
fancied them.
This was all in celebration of Lupercus, a borrowed deity from Greece, where he was known as Pan, an impish, pipe-playing man-goat with a voracious sexual appetite. This was debauchery and anathema to the new church, but it was an established and obviously popular celebration.
It would be unpopular and
difficult to ban, so why not make the celebration one that honoured the church
and love within, or with the aim of, monogamous, heterosexual marriage? St
Valentine provided the answer.
And so, across the centuries, a mythical party pooper of note came to be
celebrated, very much within the parameters laid down by the church in Rome. But in 1969, having scanned through Vatican history, church authorities decided
there was insufficient evidence that Valentine had ever existed. The saint was
duly deregistered.
Not that this ecclesiatical act has stopped reverence being accorded to the
claimed remains of a St Valentine interred in a church in Ireland. And it
certainly never put paid to the international festival of commerce triggered by
Ester Howland.
Anyway, it is probably best that the name remains. After all, Valentine’s Day has a rather better ring to it than Ester Howland Day.