Valentine's Day: the cost of romance

From Wikigender.org

Valentine's Day is celebrated in many countries around the world on the 14th February every year. The day is said to

The practice of giving valentines dates to the 19th century; today the industry is worth $1 billion

celebrate romantic love, and romantic cards (called valentines), flowers, and other gifts are given, sometimes anonymously, to an individual's romantic partner or desired partner.

History

Saint Valentine was a third-century Roman martyr, who signed a letter 'from your Valentine' to a girl (the daughter of his jailor) he had befriended and miraculously cured. In 498 A.D., the Catholic Church proclaimed the 14 February, the date he was martyred, his feast day with the possible hope of replacing the existing holiday, a festival honoring Juno, the Roman goddess of love and marriage. Church fathers probably hoped as well that a Valentine holiday would undercut the Roman fertility festival of Lupercalia, which began each Feb. 15. According to Roman custom, the night before Lupercalia boys would draw names from a jar to find which girls would be their sexual partner for the rest of the year.

There remains doubt on when Saint Valentine's Day became associated with romance, though the tradition appears to have taken hold by the late Middle Ages. The holiday became firstly entrenched as a day of romance in the nineteenth century, when the practice of sending valentines to one's sweetheart took a commercial aspect due to Ether Howland, the first person to mass-produce valentines.

Big Business

2010 Valentine's card made with Wikigender's photos using "Shape collage", Autor an

Today, the U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year, behind Christmas. The association estimates that, in the US, men spend in average twice as much money as women. According to the National Retail Federation, in 2007, the average consumer spent nearly $120 on Valentine's Day this year, up from $101 on the previous year. In total, U.S. valentines spent $16.9 billion on their sweethearts this year.

The financial crisis will probably have an impact, however, on sales: the federation estimates that consumers will probably spend an average of $102.50 on Valentine’s gifts and merchandise this year, down from last year's average of $122.98 per person. The federation now projects that total Valentine’s Day spending in 2009 should reach $14.7 billion.

“A bad economy won’t stop Cupid this Valentine’s Day, but it might slow him down,” federation president and chief executive Tracy Mullin said in a statement. “This year more than ever, consumers will look for creative and inexpensive ways to show those they love how much they mean to them.”

Gender Inequality in Romance

According to a Valentine's Day Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by market research company BIGresearch, 63 % of the over 7000 people polled planned to celebrate Valentine's Day. In addition, men will spend $154 on their Valentines, nearly double the $85 the average female will spend on her sweetheart. The most popular gifts men plan to buy to say "Be Mine": flowers (58.3 %), candy (42.9 %) and jewelry (27.6 %).

It appears that men are less likely also to receive any gift or token of love from their sweetheart. A survey of US consumers by Bruskin/Goldring Research for the Society of American Florists (SAF) found that approximately 60% of men wanted to receive flowers but only 40% received any Valentine's Day flowers.

However, while the majority of men would like to receive flowers on Feb. 14th, just 40 percent said they have received Valentine's Day flowers

Trivia

In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez announced that he would suspend San Valentin in 2009 because it could distract voters from a referendum held on February 15. In its place he launched a "week of love" starting in February 16, the day after the referendum.