Free Valentine's Day Gift

Couples all over the world share a special day on Valentine's Day. A celebration of love for one whole day each and every year. We accept this with the occasional cynic saying that it is a Hallmark Holiday.

In all honesty those cynics are completely and utterly wrong. This is a holiday that has been around since approximately 270 A.D. And if that number means nothing to you, at the time of writing this hub that would make Valentine's Day 1,742 years old. And just to let those of you out there who still think this is a Hallmark Holiday know this: Hallmark was founded in the year 1910. So Valentine's Day and all the Valentine's Day gifts and cards that go along with it are about 1,640 years older than Hallmark has been around. I would venture to say that there is a slight lead in all this gift giving business.

So where did this holiday come from you may ask. Well to be completely honest all the experts say it is shrouded in mystery; but then they all go on to say pretty much the same thing with varying embellishments. So let's look at the main consistencies for the reason that most of us buy our loved ones gifts on Valentine's Day. And guys here is a heads up, a study was conducted and stated that only 5% of women wanted sex for Valentine's Day. And this may or may not be a good statistic, but 43.1% of women expect to have sex on Valentine's Day. Let's look into the holiday of love a little more though.

Have you ever known anyone who broke the rules, was a romantic, a Christian and would not denounce any of them even when tortured and finally murdered? Well, that is the the quick and easy way to describe Saint Valentine. I should mention too, that there are actually three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus. We will focus on the one that was present during 270 A.D. though because this is the most accepted version of where Valentine's Day comes from.

During this time there was an Emperor of Rome by the name of Claudius II. Claudius outlawed marriage because he thought that marriage made his soldiers want to stay home instead of go to war. I have never seen information pertaining to Claudius himself being married or not. If he had he might have realized that many men would be happy to go to war because they are married.

Another issue that Claudius had was with God. Claudius thought that God was imposing on people worshiping him as a god. So as is the style of emperors, he outlawed Christianity. This is where we bring in a romantic and the bishop of Interamna by the name of Valentine.

This bishop let it be known to the locals that if they wished to marry then come to him to perform the ceremony. Valentine refused to renounce God as well. When Claudius found out about this he ended up bringing Valentine in and when he discovered how faithful and dedicated Valentine was he tried to convert him. Valentine refused to serve the Roman Empire thus refusing a pardon for his crimes of marrying people and believing in God.

Eventually, Claudius had enough and sentenced Valentine to a three part death. The three parts were to be beaten, then stoned, and finally decapitated. While all this attempted converting and sentencing was going on it is said that Valentine fell in love with the jailer's daughter. This is one of those examples of a guy being able to multitask if you did not realize this.

The daughter's name was Asterius. This young lady was blind it was said, but during Valentine's stay in jail her vision miraculously healed and Asterius was able to see. Well, Valentine was decapitated on February 14th, but before dying he left Asterius a final farewell note. The note was signed "From Your Valentine". And that is how we have Valentine's Day and all the V-Day gifts and romance that it entails. So the center of this story is telling us that if your special someone is not blind, then the next best gift you can give them is a box of chocolates.

As a note of interest the oldest known, and still present, Valentine's Day card is from 1415. It was a poem written by Charles, Duke of Orleans. The poem was to his wife and he himself was a romantic because he wrote it while imprisoned in the Tower of London. And he was imprisoned after being captured at the Battle of Agincourt.