Historically Incorrect Canoodling

By Stephanie Coontz

This article, "Historically Incorrect Canoodling," is about the history of valentine's day.Valentine's day was made by the Roman Catholic Church to limit sexual activities and love. They didn't want people to love each other, they believed that women were just for bearing children and that was all. You weren't allowed to love anyone back than. But later, people turned the holiday into a love fest. No one, back then, believed that love was real or that you should love someone or be in love with someone.

Valentine's day was named after a Christian priest who was "martyred in the third century." It is said that Valentine didn't follow a rule with conducting marriages for soldiers and he fell in love with his jailor's daughter. He wrote a letter to her before he died and said "From Your Valentine."

The church then made the February of 14, St. Valentine's day. It wasn't in favor of love, it was to honor a roman goddess of marriage and love.  A festival was created called Lupercalia on Feb. 15, and the night before was when boys drew a girls name from a jar to be their sexual partner for a year.

One-hundred years after the 17th century Europeans and Americans had agreed upon letting marriage be of love and letting women chose their own lovers.

I believe that how Valentine's day started was extremely crazy. First or all, they started it after some man who was executed for something that made absolutely no sense. He loved his jailors daughter and sent her a letter. And the fact that the day the Valentine's day used to be a day that  boys could pick girls names at random as a sex partner for the year??! That's ridiculous. I'm glad that the holiday changed and Americans and the Europeans had agreed upon the whole marriage ordeal. I'm happy for Valentine's day because that's the day that the person you're with can show you just how much she/or he loves you!