by Carl Bennett

Created on: February 15, 2009   Last Updated: February 20, 2009

Many believe that Valentine's Day is a Christian holiday named for St. Valentine. Of course this is only partially true as for most holiday's. All holidays that are not something like presidents day for example have been taken from pre Christian cultures and religions and modified to the ideas of the Christian dominance at the time. The reasons for doing this is not that difficult to understand. They needed away to control and convert all the existing beliefs and religions to conform to the growing new order. By taking the pagan holidays of old and twisting them around, they were then able to slowly introduce the Christian beliefs on to the people with less resistance. Christians chose one of the several St. Valentines to be the new namesake for this holiday and not for any specific reason other than they believed one of the St. Valentines were martyred about this time. He was persecuted for being a Christian by the Roman empire but not before the emperor tried to convert him to the roman religious beliefs of the time sense he liked St. Valentine.

The roman goddess Februa is the name sake of this month. She was the goddess of Mars also known as St. Febronia (from Febris, the fever of love) and Juno Februa. She was and is still known as the patroness and the passion of love. And for the Norse she is the goddess Sjofn of the northern traditions. Her orgiastic rites are still practiced to this day on the 14th of February, known as St. Valentines Day. During the roman era young men would draw names of female partners. Solmonath is the Angelo Saxon name for February meaning sun month and the Irish name is Feabhra. In the backwood traditions of America February's full moon is known as the snow moon. Traditionally a festival was held on this day the 14th of February that started at sunset the day before. Girls would collect five bay leaves to adorn there pillows to bring them dreams of there lovers or there future husbands. In England the people would carry a handful of brambles to chase off unwanted spirits. And in Scandinavia they had a tradition of running through labyrinths.

Today this holiday is celebrated the wold over by many cultures and traditions. It has evolved from exciting orgasmic rituals from early history to online delivery of flowers and chocolate which is also considered to be aphrodisiacs. The commercialized mass produced greeting cards jewelry and other shinny trinkets and bobbles are the more modern form of the lovers day currency.

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