playing into apocrypha's hands

[squeequeg]

I tried looking up the origins of Valentine's Day and ran across something interesting. According to one account*, Valentine was a Christian during the reign of Emperor Claudius. To increase the size of his armies, Claudius instituted a law forbidding men younger than 30 to marry (the idea being that unattached men would go to the army). In defiance of the law, Valentine performed secret marriages for young men until he was found out and beheaded.

It got me thinking. In honor of St. Valentine, let's celebrate all those couples whose marriages are currently prohibited by the government. May their unions outlast the bigotry of others, may their love show the world there is nothing to fear, and may those of us outside their relationships work as Valentine did to support and aid them.

And come on up to Massachusetts sometime.



*This is from the incredibly reliable source of "some guy on the web," so take it with a whole shaker full of salt. But it makes for a good story.

Comments

[ltlbird.livejournal.com]

I heard the same legend on NPR, which gives it a little more clout than "some guy on the web", I suppose.

At any rate, I love this spin on Valentine's Day. Hear, hear!

[wavyarms.livejournal.com]

I have also heard that story. And it made me think of the current prohibitions against marriage, too. So I'm all down with your new celebration! Hurrah for MA and gay marriage!

[cycon.livejournal.com]

I was particularly impressed with this op-ed piece (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/14/opinion/14coontz.html) in the New York Times, especially when it points out modern-day St. Valentine's Day as a victory over the the Catholic Church's evil plot to destroy humanity:

"But when the church declared Feb. 14 St. Valentine's feast day in 498 A.D., it was not trying to celebrate romance. Rather, the Church wanted to replace the existing holiday, a festival honoring Juno, the Roman goddess of love and marriage. Church fathers probably hoped as well that a Valentine holiday would undercut the Roman fertility festival of Lupercalia, which began each Feb. 15. According to Roman custom, on Feb. 14 - the night before Lupercalia - boys would draw names from a jar to find which girls would be their sexual partner for the rest of the year. ...

"Although the early church forbade divorce — and even prohibited engaged couples from calling off a match — theologians believed that marriage was only one step above pagan sexual license. In the early sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great wrote that while marriage was not technically sinful, the 'carnal pleasure' that husband and wife derived from sex 'cannot under any circumstances be without blame.' For the church, the message of Valentine's Day was that while marriage had a place in society, although not the highest place, romance had no place in marriage.

"In the Christian hierarchy of respectable womanhood, the virgin ranked highest, the widow next and the wife last. ... One medieval church pamphlet tried to encourage young women to take vows of celibacy by warning them that marriage would drag them down 'into the thralldom of a man, and into the sorrows of the world,' locking them to a husband who 'chideth and jaweth thee and mauleth thee as his bought thrall and patrimonial slave.'"

So they started St. Valentine's feast day to compete against a holiday celebrating love, sex and marriage, and now we have Valentine's Day, celebrating love, sex, and marriage. Hallelujah! :)

[shari-b.livejournal.com]

And in a completely unrelated note...
Congrats (again) on your publication! :) I'm going to hold you to that offer of a signed copy when I get back to the States. :)

[cycon.livejournal.com]

I don't think there is one. I think this sprang out of the Church's obbsession against sexuality, and that the obvious consequence of no sex = no more humans was ignored. (Call it the Bush mentality, if you will: propose an appealing notion and to hell with facts, logic and consequences!)

[kmunson779.livejournal.com]

For certain periods of Church history (and in certain sects), the "final judgement day" was coming so soon that procreation was unnecessary -- no point in having kids when you'd see the end of this world in your lifetime.

[cycon.livejournal.com]

no sex for the sects, huh? :P

[stealthmuffin.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to contrast this with heresies such as the Cathars, who held that this world was so sinful that procreation -- bringing some poor new soul into this fallen world -- was the worst act imaginable. To that end they swore utter celibacy. The church wisely looked askance at this, and it's interesting to read some of the texts against Cathars from the time.

It's also hard to argue with that medieval pamplet...marriage often did mean a loss of freedom for women of the time, and taking the vows could be seen as an act of autonomy in some ways. Limited autonomy, of course, but it still made a woman free of a man's direct authority.

In any case, I think the strain of Catholicism you mention above has always been in tension with the non-dualist aspect of Christianity, with the advocates of virginity at all costs sometimes gaining the upper hand and the more practical side ("Better to marry than to burn") sometimes resurging.