It only seems like a couple of days ago, we were all celebrating Christmas and getting ready to celebrate the New Year. Now, Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and it seems like there is always something forcing us to spend money to express our love for one another.
Since January, local stores have been filled with giant teddy bears, boxes of chocolates, and lots of Valentine’s Day cards, tempting us to spend as much money for our partners as possible. Shouldn’t a simple walk in the park or a candlelight dinner be enough to declare our love to the people we cherish? Or do we have to spend to prove ourselves committed to a relationship?
Valentine’s Day wasn’t always the overly commercialised holiday that we know today, and it represented something meaningful without a capitalist society undermining its significance for mass-produced goods.
Since the third century, the 14th of February honours the death of a Roman priest, Saint Valentine.
Back then, society was in crisis. The emperor would suppress Christians and had banned their practices. Saint Valentine, however, continued ministering to Christians, and he was imprisoned and sentenced to death for it.
During his time in jail, he fell in love with the jailer’s daughter, it is believed that he restored her sight. Before his execution, he wrote her a letter proving his innocence and declaring his love for her. It was signed. ‘Your Valentine.’
To honour Valentine’s sense of justice and pure love, Christians named the day of his death (14th of February) St Valentine’s Day.
It’s a curious thought to wonder how many people know the tragic story of Valentine’s Day that could honestly compete with the popularity of Romeo and Juliet… Quite frankly, I wasn’t aware of it until a couple of days ago, as over time, the story seems like it has become forgotten, like every other annual holiday origin story.
This capitalist society is constantly stripping traditions of their significance into something meaningless and therefore profitable to make us spend all of our money, whilst I’m still recovering from the amount I spent on Christmas gifts. And then, in a couple of weeks, they’ll already be promoting Easter.
We’ve been persuaded by consumerism culture that gift-giving is the only way to show our love for one another. Gifts don’t equal love, rather, they equal the ‘consumerisation’ of love, a love that is superficial and shallow.
This distances people from the true meaning of love. We don’t need to turn everything into a tangible, realistic good. And most certainly not Love.
What happened to writing love letters, handmade gifts you could cherish forever or DIY paintings? Now it’s just already bought cards, last-minute gifts, and the same Tesco box of chocolate everyone is buying.
Now, I’m no expert, doesn’t a thoughtful, authentic, and handmade gift means so much more than a thoughtless thousand-pound pandora bracelet?
So, let’s rethink social norms, break the tradition and be creative in how we express our love for one another, and whatever you do, DON’T GET THAT STUFFED TEDDY BEAR!!
By Elena Pre-Kouadio
Feature image: Pixaby