[Editor: This article, regarding Valentine’s Day, was published in The Australian Women’s Weekly (Sydney, NSW), 13 February 1937.]
An Editorial
February 13, 1937.
St. Valentines Day
The actual date, the fourteenth of February, was a day of gifts even before the time of Saint Valentine (the third century A.D.). On a moderate estimate the festival is at least 2000 years old.
Yet, age-old and firmly entrenched in popular favor as the St. Valentine’s customs appeared to be, they gradually waned towards the close of the nineteenth century.
This was perhaps due to the more romantic customs becoming forgotten. One of the most picturesque was the token which was sent to a sweetheart anonymously or merely marked with initials to arrive on St. Valentine’s Day.
The sender then visited the recipient of the valentine, and, if acceptable, claimed a kiss and became his (or her) acknowledged sweetheart.
Later the custom dwindled to the exchange of gifts or highly-decorated cards between lovers; and finally came the caricature card which ridiculed some trait of character or physical feature supposed to be possessed by the recipient.
These naturally lent themselves to the perpetuation of petty spites and squabbles, and in Australia died out gradually in the present century.
In Britain and America, the romantic Valentine has had quite a popular revival. St. Valentine’s Day cards and gifts are freely circulated, not only between lovers, but between husbands and wives, as tokens or reminders of affection.
It is, perhaps, a good sign, a token that all romance has not vanished from this era of crude facts and mechanisation.
— THE EDITOR.
Source:
The Australian Women’s Weekly (Sydney, NSW), 13 February 1937, p. 12
Also published (abridged) in:
The Charleville Times (Charleville, Qld.), 11 February 1949, p. 17
Editor’s notes:
A.D. = an abbreviation of “Anno Domini” or “anno Domini”, Latin for “in the year of the Lord”, also rendered as “in the year of our Lord”; year 1 A.D. was based upon a calculation made by Dionysius Exiguus (a Christian monk) regarding when Jesus Christ was born (on a related note, “B.C.”, an abbreviation of “Before Christ” or “before Christ”, is used to refer to the years before the birth of Jesus Christ)
See: 1) Owen Jarus and Robert Coolman, “Keeping time: The origin of B.C. and A.D.”, Live Science, 15 January 2022
2) Merrill Fabry, “Now You Know: When Did People Start Saying That the Year Was ‘A.D.’?”, Time, 31 August 2016
3) “Anno Domini”, Wikipedia
valentine = a Valentine’s Day card; a greeting card, gift, message, or token (anonymous or signed) which expresses affection, attraction, or love, which is sent to a lover, sweetheart, or the object of one’s affection on the occasion of Saint Valentine’s Day (14th February); someone who is the recipient or sender of a Valentine’s Day card, gift, message, or token; one’s lover or sweetheart
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