The Saint Valentine's Day Conundrum

What is St. Valentine's Day all about? I'm not a catholic, so I don't really see why I should celebrate it, and yet it seems it's become more of an American holiday along the lines of Christmas. I set out to find the story behind the day.

St. Valentine's Parish in Pennsylvania has a nice page about the big guy. Seems he may have been persecuted for marrying Christian couples in Roman times (thus the patronage of lovers), and Emperor Claudius the Goth had his head removed. There's also a wealth of links about him on that page.

The Catholic Enclyopædia (written in 1912) has a fairly good entry on St. Valentine, explaining the connection with lovers a bit differently. At least as far back as the 14th century, birds were thought to choose mates halfway through the second month of the year, or February 14, which was already St. V.'s day. As the following quote illustrates, the Enclyopædia is little bit out of date:

The custom of choosing and sending valentines has of late years fallen into comparative desuetude.

Then there's the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, February 14, 1929, in which Al Capone is said to have tried to eliminate a rival gang leader, though no one was ever convicted and the man he was after arrived late, and so missed being killed. The FBI has a wealth of information on the massacre, made available through our friend, the Freedom of Information Act.

What has this got to do with me? Well, this is my first Valentine's Day as a married man, and despite the fact that I resent all the years that I was lonely on February 14, I just wanted to gloat that I won't be alone this year ;)