Valentine's Sweet Nothings

As early as the fourth century BC, the Romans engaged in an annual young man's rite of passage to the god Lupercus. The names of teenage women were placed in a box and drawn at random by adolescent men. The young man was assigned a female companion for their mutual entertainment and pleasure (often sexual), for the duration of a year, after which another lottery was staged.

The early church fathers were determined to put an end to this 800-year-old practice and sought a "lovers" saint to replace the deity Lupercus. They found a likely candidate in Valentine, a bishop who had been martyred some 200 years earlier.

February 14 was a traditional time for Romans to court prospective mates and young men offered handwritten affections to women they admired. These cards acquired Saint Valentine's name.

The earliest Valentine's Day card was sent in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London. This card is now displayed in the British Museum.

The first American publisher of Valentine's cards was artist Esther Howland, who produced elaborate and expensive lace cards in the 1870s.