While Valentine’s Day has been around in some form for over a thousand years, our modern conceptions of romantic love and marriage are much much more recent.
As with most popular religious holidays, Valentine’s Day has inevitably become perverted by heathens and capitalists. For most of us, this day has strayed so far from its original significance, it would be completely unrecognizable to its earliest celebrants - and that’s certainly something to celebrate! Whether you’re celebrating galentines, palentines, the feast of the martyrs, or something else entirely, we’ve got you!
Valentine’s is a great excuse to reflect on and indulge in love and lust in all of its many forms, but this holiday is also a beautiful reminder that all of our traditions and customs evolve over time - let’s encourage that evolution and reclaim love more fully for ourselves and others.
Where marriage was once a practical affair between two people (and their families), many of us now marry for love. Many of us would happily marry all of our lovers if the state would allow it. Many of us never marry at all. Whatever your orientation toward love and marriage, rest assured that your ancestors would be puzzled or downright scandalized by whatever the fuck we’re all doing now. Heck, your neighbours might even be scandalized if they only knew.
This Valentine’s Day, we encourage you to do you. Celebrate love in all its forms in whatever way suits you best, but remember almost no one will begrudge a thoughtful gift celebrating how much you like, love, or lust after them.
