St Valentines Day, Festival of the Matchmakers

There are as many as eight possible Valentines Day origins and the three most likely contenders were all early church martyrs.

However, before the Christian Saints, the day started as a festival to honour Juno, Queen of the Roman deities. Juno was sister and consort of Jupiter, mother of Mars, and one of the most important of the Roman pantheon. She had many duties, each with an associated title, as a protector of the Roman people she was Juno Regina, advisor to those about to marry as Juno Moneta and as goddess of Roman women and childbirth, Juno Lucina. From her title "Juno Moneta" we get the word "money" because the Roman mint was built close to one of her temples. For most Romans she was a protector of women as the goddess of marriage, fertility and all aspects of pregnancy and childbirth

Her day was 14 February and the following day was the Feast of Lupercalia.

Lupercalia began at the Ides of February. Members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at the sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would then sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification.

Young men then sliced the goat's hide into strips, dipped them in the sacrificial blood and took to the streets, gently slapping both women and fields of crops with the goathide strips to encourage fertility in the coming year.

Lupercalia was also celebrated as a young lovers' festival with a novel matchmaking game. On the eve of the festival of Lupercalia the names of the eligible daughters of Rome were written on slips of paper and placed into jars. Each young man would draw a girl's name from the jar and the two would then be partners for the duration of the festival.

In 496 CE, Pope Gelasius changed the date of the Lupercalia festival to Saint Valentine's Day, February 14. Associating the matchmaking feast with the martyrdom of Valentine was convenient because the days were almost identical.

So traditionally, mid-February was a Roman time to meet and court prospective mates. More than fifteen hundred years later we continue the tradition

In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their Valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. To wear your heart on your sleeve now means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling, that you are ready to fall a victim to romantic love. Is your heart on your sleeve ?

Susanna Duffy is a Civil Celebrant, grief counsellor and mythologist. She creates ceremonies and Rites of Passage for individual and civic functions, and specialises in celebrations for women. http://celebrant.yarralink.com