Many believe that they are already privy to the origin of Valentine’s Day. Although the traditional story of Saint Valentine has its truthful elements, it is by no means the entire story.
The origin of Valentine’s Day is ancient: it can actually be traced to the early Cro Magnon cultures. Originally, it was a ritualized form of punishment for those members who failed to fulfill their duties to the tribe. Apparently, several of the Cro cultures held procreation as the most sacred and crucial effort one could make for the group. On what was then known as “The Day of Ultimate Pains,” every male above the age of seventeen who had not yet impregnated a female was brought before the tribe. They were each suspended from a tree by their testicles. Meanwhile the happy couples of the tribe were paraded around the trees as they taunted and jibed the unfortunate males. Already, we see faint traces of the torment that modern Valentine’s Days can inflict on the unmatched.
The next historical occurrence of the holiday takes place with the rise of the Pharoahs in ancient Egypt. At this point comes the first articulated association of the heart as the source of love. An extremely esoteric sect of Egyptian religion mandated that on “The Day of Wounded Hearts,” lovers should express their affections for one another by exchanging the mummified hearts of animals. A camel heart, recovered from an archaeological site in the Valley of the Kings, is inscribed with hieroglyphs roughly translated to “U R CUTE.”
From Egypt, “The Day of Wounded Hearts” diffused into the Roman culture. There, it enjoyed the most conspicuously extravagant period of it’s existence. Although many are quite aware of the existence and rampant lust of the Roman orgies, by all accounts “The Day of Wounded Hearts” eclipsed them easily. It became a festival for unbridled, communal love that would go unequaled until the 1960’s, and later, during the Clinton years.
With the fall of Rome, Valentine’s Day virtually disappeared for centuries. If not for the determined efforts of a small order of fiercely homosexual monks, the holiday would have been forever lost to the mists of time. These monks, forefathers to today’s ranks of the clergy, reserved one day of the year to profess their love for one another. It was a day free of their vows of silence and chastity; this holiday was the epitome of affection, and remains the ultimate expression of the Valentine’s Day ideal. Until, of course, the invention of the handcuffs and leather underwear by Brother Bondagius of the Seventh Coming.
During the European Renaissance, a young man discovers the texts of the monks, and reintroduces the holiday to Western Society. The holiday was embraced, and essentially became the day we now know as Valentine’s Day. Sometime around 1700, the erroneous myth of St. Valentine was fabricated to explain the holiday. No one is certain why this is, but many in the scientific community believe it involves a conspiracy of intelligent African monkeys intent on domination of the planet. This is why no one listens to the scientific community.
