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Speaker 1: Ah, there's nothing like romance. It's all about love, sex

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Speaker 1: and attachment. But like romance itself, Valentine's Day has been

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Speaker 1: a work in progress. It wasn't always candy, roses and

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Speaker 1: a night out twenty five hundred years ago. It was

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Speaker 1: all about fertility and who wouldn't be turned on and

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Speaker 1: ready to go after getting slapped with a bloody animal skin?

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Speaker 1: Put a big red bow on that for me. I'm

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Speaker 1: Patty Steele. How romance has evolved. That's next on the backstory.

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Speaker 1: We're back with the backstory. As I keep insisting, we

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Speaker 1: all want the same things in life, shelter, food, and love.

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Speaker 1: That's true, no matter the place and time in which

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Speaker 1: we find ourselves. It's just that how that plays out

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Speaker 1: means different things to different people, and it played out

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Speaker 1: really differently depending on when you lived. I know a

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Speaker 1: lot of us these days brush romance aside, but secretly

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Speaker 1: we kind of dream of the perfect connection. Now here's

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Speaker 1: the thing. Attachment is ancient. In fact, apes were first

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Speaker 1: in line. They evolved the ability to become emotionally attached

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Speaker 1: to one another. As humans appeared, we maintained those attachments,

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Speaker 1: mostly because it helped us and the apes survive. We

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Speaker 1: all need our team. Right later, through thousands of years

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Speaker 1: and right up until the seventeen hundreds, marriage became a thing,

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Speaker 1: but for much of that time it was pure business.

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Speaker 1: Romance wasn't even a consideration when it came to marriage.

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Speaker 1: Lot of times people married people they didn't even know.

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Speaker 1: The earliest beginnings of Valentine's Day, though, happened in Roman

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Speaker 1: times in the sixth century BC, which was what, at

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Speaker 1: least in our eyes, was a pretty unromantic and very

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Speaker 1: bloody pagan fertility festival. Every year between February thirteenth and

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Speaker 1: fifteenth Romans celebrated Lupicaglia. It was a celebration of the

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Speaker 1: Roman god fawnas his priests dressed in goat skins for

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Speaker 1: the festivities. They would sacrifice animals and then slap women

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Speaker 1: with the bloody hides of those animals. They believed the

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Speaker 1: whole thing made women more fertile. Later in the festival,

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Speaker 1: women would be paired off with men by lottery. Now,

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Speaker 1: if that is in romance, what is huh? So The

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Speaker 1: whole marriage thing boiled down to necessities For thousands of years.

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Speaker 1: In most societies, men dealt with the money, getting the food,

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Speaker 1: and prime decision making. As for women, it was their

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Speaker 1: job to figure out how to make whatever money they

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Speaker 1: had work, Plus they took care of the home and

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Speaker 1: kids and the social obligations. Was marriage romantic Not so

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Speaker 1: much if you had money, it was about inheritance, land, politics, business,

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Speaker 1: and children. Truth be told, Wealthy folks often did find romance,

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Speaker 1: but more often than not it was on the side

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Speaker 1: and mostly just for men. Why well, women couldn't around

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Speaker 1: because they had to worry about pregnancy, and men wanted

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Speaker 1: to make sure that any inheritance they left behind went

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Speaker 1: to their own bloodline. That's actually why women have always

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Speaker 1: gotten a raw deal when it comes to enjoying sex,

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Speaker 1: and men have been considered studs if they do. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you didn't have money, marriage was all about getting

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Speaker 1: the best deal possible from your intended for you and

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Speaker 1: your family. You'd be looking for anything from a little

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Speaker 1: bit of money, land or at least access to it,

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Speaker 1: to somebody to have children with. You would then put

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Speaker 1: together whatever kind of home you could with traditional responsibilities.

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Speaker 1: Not very romantic, but very practical. Now here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: People entering into a marriage agreement didn't really expect anything else.

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Speaker 1: That was the Achilles Heel for Romeo and Juliet. They

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Speaker 1: were teenagers who treasured love beyond family obligation. Clearly not

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Speaker 1: a choice that ended well for them. There goes Shakespeare

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Speaker 1: by the way, once again sharing a teaching moment, and

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Speaker 1: there were other exceptions. In fourteen fifteen, the Duke of

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Speaker 1: Orleans wrote what's considered to be the very first Valentine.

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Speaker 1: It was a poem the twenty one year old duke

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Speaker 1: sent to his wife from prison. He was locked up

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Speaker 1: in the Tower of London after being captured in a

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Speaker 1: battle with British troops. He was heartbroken and wrote to

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Speaker 1: his much loved wife, I am already sick with love,

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Speaker 1: my very gentle Valentine. Unfortunately for both of them, he

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Speaker 1: was still in the lock up for another twenty five years,

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Speaker 1: and his very gentle Valentine of a wife died five

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Speaker 1: years before he was set free. Happily, by the seventeen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: romantic feelings started to be taken into account when it

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Speaker 1: came to marriage. On the other hand, there wasn't much

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Speaker 1: in the way of dating. They called it courting, and

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Speaker 1: the intention was very different. The goal of courtship was

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Speaker 1: always marriage, so naturally family who was still very much

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Speaker 1: involved in the decision just according gave both the man

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Speaker 1: and the woman the opportunity to see if they felt

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Speaker 1: anything for one another, that little flutter on your insides.

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Speaker 1: In fact, in some cases young couples were allowed to

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Speaker 1: go to bed together but not getting too excited. Here,

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Speaker 1: they were fully dressed, and they had a thing called

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Speaker 1: a bundling board between them. Yeah, it was actually a

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Speaker 1: great big board that kept them from touching but allowed

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Speaker 1: them to lie together in the dark and talk, which

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Speaker 1: is actually a really cool way of getting to know

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Speaker 1: each other. Nothing like a long chat in the dark.

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Speaker 1: In addition to bundling boards, they also had bundling sacks

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Speaker 1: that were basically sleeping bags for two, but sewn all

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Speaker 1: the way up the middle. Now, if the couple decided

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Speaker 1: there were feelings and the man made a commitment, he

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Speaker 1: had a really rough time getting out of it unless

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Speaker 1: the woman released him from his obligation. It was called

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Speaker 1: breach of promise. If he weren't officially released, and sometimes

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Speaker 1: the law got involved if a guy tried to reneg

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Speaker 1: on his marriage offer. In any event, feelings were becoming

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Speaker 1: more important, and that's when Valentine's Day became a thing.

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Speaker 1: Love letters and gifts were away to win somebody's heart.

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Speaker 1: The absolute peak of the romantic approach to Valentine's Day

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Speaker 1: began in the late seventeen hundreds, when people began to

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Speaker 1: construct elaborate puzzle Valentines with folded paper, which, when each

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Speaker 1: section was unfolded, revealed more about the sender's feelings and

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Speaker 1: how clever they were. In the eighteen hundreds, Wow, let

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Speaker 1: the games begin. In an effort to outdo competitors, guys

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Speaker 1: began to really lay on the schmals. Valentine's cards reached

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Speaker 1: their peak in the mid eighteen hundreds, since the mail

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Speaker 1: service had become reliable and there was really no other

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Speaker 1: way to reach out to a possible love interest. Wildly

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Speaker 1: artistic Valentines showed up, decorated with everything from peacock feathers

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Speaker 1: to lays to jewels, accompanied by every sort of mushy

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Speaker 1: but beautiful poetry or prose they could come up with.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes they'd quote their favorite romantic poet, frequently Elizabeth Barrett,

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Speaker 1: who had published her love poems to her future husband

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Speaker 1: Robert Browning. The first lines of her sonnets from the

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Speaker 1: Portuguese read how do I love THEE. Let me count

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Speaker 1: the ways I love THEE, to the depth and breadth

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Speaker 1: and height my soul can reach. Wow, that's a good

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Speaker 1: line to steal, right. What else did Victorians do to

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Speaker 1: win over a sweetheart in those days? Well, they started

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Speaker 1: the tradition of giving flowers, especially red roses, for Valentine's Day,

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Speaker 1: still very popular today. And they gave jewelry, which has

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Speaker 1: never gone out of fashion. On top of that, you

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Speaker 1: might also swoon over a box of chocolates. In a

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Speaker 1: smart business move, Richard Cadbury of Cadbury Chocolate created the

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Speaker 1: first heart shaped box of chocolates in eighteen sixty one,

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Speaker 1: trying to drive up sales for the family business, and

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Speaker 1: boy did it work. Now thirty six million heart shaped

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Speaker 1: boxes of chocolate are sold every year. By the way,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't all flowers and chocolates. There was a pretty

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Speaker 1: snarky angle too. During the Victorian era. If you didn't

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Speaker 1: appreciate the attention of some admirer, you would send vinegar valentines,

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Speaker 1: also called penny dreadfuls. They were meant to put a

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Speaker 1: stop to unwanted attention, but they were really sort of

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Speaker 1: like nasty social media comments. These days, because you could

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Speaker 1: say something horrifying to somebody without getting in their face

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Speaker 1: to do it. Anyway, By the time Hollywood got involved

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Speaker 1: in romance, they sold us on the idea of romantic

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Speaker 1: forever love and don't you love the happy ending, happily

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Speaker 1: ever after storyline. The question is is it realistic? These days,

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Speaker 1: we still celebrate Valentine's Day, but we've begun to lay

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Speaker 1: off the drippy part of it. In case you didn't

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Speaker 1: realize it. Today teachers get more Valentines than any other group,

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Speaker 1: followed by kids, moms, then wives, and of course our

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Speaker 1: fur babies. Some of us even celebrate Gallantine's Day. You

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Speaker 1: celebrate with your best female friends, even if there's no romance.

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Speaker 1: In fact, backing us on that thought is the Greek

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Speaker 1: philosopher Plato, who said the highest form of love was

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Speaker 1: actually our non sexual, non romantic attachment to another person.

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Speaker 1: That's so called brotherly love, which we called platonic love

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Speaker 1: named after Plato. Of course, he believed that passion, romance,

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Speaker 1: and sex make us do really stupid stuff, and that

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Speaker 1: love between family members and close friends is the perfect attachment.

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Speaker 1: Amen Plato. Now here's the thing, As I said at

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Speaker 1: the start, We're all looking to feel something that little

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Speaker 1: flutter and warmth when you see somebody you're attracted to

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Speaker 1: and when they lock eyes with you. Romance does that

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Speaker 1: for us, but so do puppies and kittens. Happy Valentine's Day,

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Speaker 1: however you want to celebrate and with whom hope you'll

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Speaker 1: love The Backstory with Patty Steele. Please lea a review.

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Speaker 1: I would love it if you would subscribe or follow

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Speaker 1: for free to get new episodes delivered automatically. And if

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Speaker 1: you have a story you'd like me to take a

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Speaker 1: deeper dive into and share, feel free to dm me

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Speaker 1: on Facebook at Patty Steele or on Instagram at Real

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Speaker 1: Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia,

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Speaker 1: Premiere Networks, the Elvis Durand Group and Steel Trap Productions.

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Speaker 1: Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We

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Speaker 1: have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to

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Speaker 1: reach out to me with comments and even story suggestions

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Speaker 1: on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at

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Speaker 1: Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele.

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Speaker 1: The pieces of history you didn't know you needed to

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Speaker 1: know