Disturbing truth behind Valentine’s Day might change how you see the world

Valentine's Day is a day we call come together and celebrate being one half of a couple, but it didn’t start out that way.

From roses to chocolates and flowers, the way that we celebrate the most romantic day of the year has come a long way through the ages, and it’s a good thing we decided to stray from its origins.

Now, for those who don’t know, it all stemmed from St. Valentine - a saint who began to marry people in secret to allow them to love each other as a married couple and then relocated them so that the Roman army would not find out.

Well, that’s what some people believe anyway.

Valentine's Day has a dark origin (Getty Stock Images)

Violent beginnings

In truth, it more likely came from Lupercalia, a Roman festival which was celebrated annually from 13 to 15 February.

While the Romans did in fact execute two men by the title of Valentine on 14 February during the third century, Lupercalia was a horrid tradition which may have been where Valentine’s Day stemmed from.

According to history, the Romans would sacrifice a dog and a goat and then whip women with the hides of the animals.

They would have these women line up to be beaten, as they believed it would make them fertile, according to Noel Lenski, a religious studies professor at Yale University.

He explained to NPR way back in 2011 that the Romans ‘were drunk’ and ‘they were naked’.

All of this was part of a tradition of pairing men with women after placing the names of women into a jar which would be drawn by blokes who would either, erm, couple up with them for the festival, or even begin a relationship with them for the long term.

The death of (one of the) St Valentine's (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

While Emperor Claudius II did execute two men called Valentine on what we now know as Valentine’s Day, and the Catholic Church then created St. Valentine's Day in response to their deaths, it’s not too clear whether St. Valentine was an actual martyr for love.

A big mix-up

Instead, Valentine’s Day was simply a day to remember the death of a Saint, which was then muddled up thanks to Pope Gelasius I, who combined the Memorial Day with Lupercalia to dispel the festival as having been a pagan ritual of fertility.

So, once combined, the event became an interpretation of what the Romans used to do, but with clothing and probably without beating naked women with dead dogs.

Lenski revealed: "It was a little more of a drunken revel, but the Christians put clothes back on it. That didn't stop it from being a day of fertility and love."

Similar to what Valentine’s Day became for Christians, the Normans celebrated Galatin's Day, which meant ‘lover of women’, which further muddled up the meaning of St. Valentine's Day because the two names sound similar.

Shakespeare to the rescue

You might actually have this guy to thank for it all being so lovey-dovey (Stock Montage/Getty Images)

But thanks to Shakespeare injecting some romance into the day, it began to spread across the world, with people then choosing to add handwritten cards and little tokens of love to be sold for those who want to commemorate their relationship in the Middle Ages.

However, Valentines Day didn’t become what we all know it to be now until 1913, when Hallmark Cards of Kansas City began mass producing Valentine’s Day cards for all to purchase.

So, it all started with a frisky and violent festival and the death of a Saint... how romantic.