As soon as the Holidays are out of the way, Valentine’s Day is virtually everywhere. Online shops have their themed sales, supermarket chains release special menus, stationery stores are covered in frilly decorations and heart-shaped balloons, and for two weeks straight, most people who are somewhat coupled up spend a significant amount of time pondering about gifts, cards, and dinners.
According to the annual survey released this year by the U.S. National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics, on Valentine’s Day, consumers are expected to spend a record 29.1 billion dollars. Yet, the picture painted by this widespread commitment to celebrate this annual festival seems to clash with what we see online and often hear in real life about the challenging realities of being in a relationship or looking for love in the 2020s, at the time of dating apps, social media, and late-stage capitalism.
From a Christian feast day to chocolate boxes galore
Romantic love has a long history. The ‘Love Song for Shu-Sin‘, an ancient Mesopotamian love poem, was written circa 2000 BCE. Since then, rivers of ink have been used to write about this complex facet of the human experience. Needless to say, something as deep-seated as love, in the collective consciousness, has morphed along with the ever-changing socio-economic characteristics of our societies, and the way we see and celebrate Valentine’s Day is the perfect incarnation of this phenomenon.
What we now call Valentine’s Day was originally the Feast of Saint Valentine, a Christian feast day honoring a 3rd-century Roman martyr, Valentine (or better, Valentinus), who became the patron saint of lovers. The day on which this holiday is celebrated might not be a coincidence but rather an example of religious syncretism, the practice of mixing elements of one religion into another one, an approach carried out amply by the Catholic Church in Late Antiquity. In fact, Lupercalia, the Roman pastoral festival promoting health and fertility, was celebrated annually on February 15th.
The fourteenth century poem by the English writer Geoffrey Chaucer about birds picking their mates, titled ‘Parliament of Fowls‘, is credited as the first literary association between romantic love and Saint Valentine. The well-established tradition of giving and receiving cards and chocolate boxes on Valentine’s Day can be traced, like many other things, to the Victorian era, marking the beginning of the association between Valentine’s Day, mass production, and spending.
The politics of love and Valentine’s Day in the digital era
This long-standing connection between Valentine’s Day and the wider socio-cultural environment is unsurprising, but rather an extension of the one between romantic relationships and politics. In her article ‘The Traffic in Women: Notes on the “Political Economy” of Sex‘ (1975), the American anthropologist Gayle Rubin analyzes Lévi-Strauss’s theory of elementary forms of kinship. Rubin identifies three key elements of kinship as proposed by Lévi-Strauss: the incest taboo, the division of labor by sex, and institutionalized marriage. She argues that these elements create societal asymmetry by categorizing individuals into distinct male and female roles, thereby reinforcing heterosexuality. Rubin states that heterosexuality emerges from social mechanisms in which men exchange women, leading to their domestication within established norms and the crystallization of gender identities. Marriage has also been a matter of business, family, prestige, and ultimately money for many people in the past.
This link between love and money has never been served so fully, to the point that it’s even in allegedly escapist romance media like Netflix’s hit show, Bridgerton. A connection that’s a significant cause behind the uneasiness many Millennials and Gen Zers feel when navigating relationships and the cultural phenomena associated with them, like Valentine’s Day. The fact that such discomfort is reaching fever-pitch during a time when the younger generations are facing growing exploitation, social inequalities, and consumerism is no coincidence.
The popularity of content consisting of so-called influencers discussing tips on how to find “high-value man” or “high-value woman” and beautified stories of the alleged joys of the “trad-wife” life, and the inescapable hetero dating horror stories is hardly going to make people want to jump into the dating scene with an open heart. Not to mention that scrolling left or right on dating apps in the hopes of finding a kindred spirit feels disheartening to the romantics.
The “contentification” of relationships and people, though, is only part of the puzzle. For many people, it is not easy to think of love and relationships when money is tight; their finances are always on their mind, and building a future together with a loved one, whatever that might look like, feels unachievable. However, while love may appear complicated and Valentine’s Day may seem like a day to endure, it is also true that human connections of all forms, not solely romantic ones, hold significant value in our lives.
