Posted on: Monday, February 14, 2005

ABOUT MEN

By Peter Boylan
Advertiser Staff Writer

On this day every year, with the tax man poised to pounce, Americans will act as the ancient Romans did.

Give or take $13.2 billion worth of jewelry, flowers, candy, candlelit dinners and stuffed animals.

St. Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome under Emperor Claudius II. Claudius forbade young men from marrying because he needed soldiers for his army. Valentine performed marriages against the emperor's will, because he didn't think the king could dictate happiness.

He was killed for his actions.

But the start of the third-largest retail holiday in the United States is tied to the spring purification festivals of ancient Rome.

To begin the festival, priests would gather at the cave where the infants Remus and Romulus, the mythical founders of Rome, were believed to have been looked after by a she-wolf. The priests would sacrifice a goat for fertility and a dog for purification.

Boys then sliced the hide of the goat into strips. The boys would then run naked through the town slapping women with bloody pieces of goat butt, because the priests believed it made the women more fertile. After the slapping, all the single women in town placed their names in a large urn and all the bachelors were allowed to pull one name.

The (presumably) lucky woman is paired with the man for a year. The matches consistently ended in marriage, and Pope Gelasius declared Feb. 14 St. Valentine's Day around 498 A.D.

I don't think that smacking your significant other across the backside with a T-bone from Safeway is going to get you out of an 8 p.m. reservation at Alan Wong's, but it raises a point lost on Valentine's Day practitioners.

This day was not founded on the principle of spending money to convey your love for someone. Yet as a nation, we have embraced Valentine's Day as an opportunity to one-up one another in a game of "How much do you love me?"

According to the the National Retail Federation's 2005 Valentine's Day survey, the average consumer will spend $97.27 on Valentine's Day, down a chocolate truffle or two from $99.24 last year.

Middle-aged Americans 45 to 54, long sullied by the monotony of marriage and relationships, will still average about $118.11 each this year, more than any other age group and much higher than the $88.96 the demographic spent in 2004.

In all, Americans are projected to spend $13.2 billion on Valentine's Day.

Personally, after paying for an anniversary gift and a Christmas present in the last three months, I don't have the disposable income necessary for an elaborate celebration, and I am certainly not killing a goat.

But my girlfriend shouldn't worry, because like every other day of the year, she will be loved.

Reach Peter Boylan at 535-8110 or pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.