Happy Valentines Day! Valentines Day wasn't always about sappy cards, boxes of chocolate or dozens of roses.
Saint Valentines Day started as a liturgical celebration of one or more early Christian saints named Valentinus. Apparently, Saint Valentine was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry, and for ministering to Christians who were persecuted under the Roman Empire. During his imprisonment, he is said to have healed the daughter of his jailer. Legends goes that before his execution, he wrote her a letter "From your Valentine" as a farewell.
Valentines Day was first associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. By the 15th Century, it had evolved into an occasion where lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionary, and sending greeting cards.
In 1797 a British publisher issued "The Young Man's Valentine Writer", which contained scores of suggested sentimental verses for the young lover unable to compose his own. Printers had already begun producing a limited number of cards with verses and sketches, called "mechanical valentines", and a reduction of postal rates in the next century ushered in the less personal, but easier practice of mailing Valentines. That, in turn, made it possible for the first time to exchange cards anonymously.
The U.S. Greeting Card Association (there's an association for everything these days, isn't there!) estimates that about 190 million valentines are sent out each year in the US. Half of those valentines are given to family members other than husband or wife, usually to children.
