According to Bob Merrill’s 1961 hit song, “Love makes the world go ‘round.”
However, if the American consumer adheres to Valentine’s Day trends, the real force which drives the world is currency and the ignorance to the origin of the national holiday. Companies who reap the benefits of Valentine’s Day spending claim the holiday is all about love, but it seems to me this “love” is measured by the amount spent on the intended individual.
According to the National Retail Federation, the U.S. is predicted to spend a total of $19.6 billion on Valentine’s Day. If this holiday truly is about love, should it not be a day celebrating the truest acts of love which require no monetary expenses?
I truly believe something handmade and coming directly from someone’s own creative ideas is more valuable than giving someone a pre-written card, of which there are near 145 million purchased according to Belle Reynoso with CNN. In addition, the sheer number of articles telling readers exactly what to get for their loved ones, or even articles providing tips for the bedroom is astounding. Articles like these take the originality and intimacy out of the holiday, which people claim is a day about giving from the heart.
To make matters worse, Valentine’s Day comes from troubling origins. Elizabeth Mucha and Whitney Young of the Chicago Tribune express their extreme dislike of the holiday due to the fact many do not even know what exactly they are celebrating. Mucha and Young explain how the namesake of the holiday, Saint Valentine, was a priest martyred for performing outlawed marriages of youths in love.
This seems like a humble, yet morbid origin for a holiday which is seemingly all about love, but the way the holiday was celebrated in ancient Rome was quite misogynistic and not at all romantic.
“Each boy would draw the name of a young woman, and be paired with that woman for the rest of the year. The women were obligated to do so under Roman law, and most of these relationships led to marriage,” Mucha and Young explain. 
Thankfully, women have rights combatting patriarchal domination such as this. If such a practice was conducted today, it would be deemed barbaric and cause quite an uproar in these modern times. So why do we celebrate traditions advocating for the subordination of women?
The fact we celebrate a holiday like this is no shock to me, as the trend of celebrating holidays romanticizing a tragic and disgraceful history, such as the leader of the genocide of Native Americans, Christopher Columbus, is so popular.
It was not until much later Valentine’s Day mirrored the mushy and sentimental holiday we have today. According to Arnie Seipel of NPR, romanticism was not an element of Valentine’s Day until Shakespearean times, and it was not until 1913 Hallmark started their mass-production of Valentine’s Day cards.
With the holiday’s questionable beginning, it is a wonder Valentine’s Day is still celebrated or was even fashioned. Although I enjoy receiving flowers and chocolates just as much as the next person, it does not mean I feel any more or less loved because of it, nor do I want to celebrate a holiday which was formed off of female subservience and the murder of an innocent man.