Historically Incorrect Canoodling By NY TIMES Stephanie Coontz
The main idea of this article is that people now and days are seperating love from sex and are just doing it for the pleasure. The article also talks about the origins of Valentines Day and what it was really about when it was first invented by the Roman Catholic Church thousands of years ago.
Details or evidence I have from the article is when it talks about the vvery first Valentines Day and how it was originally to keep sexual passion rates down but was later on changed centuries later by young people and it was from then on a holiday to "celebrate romantic love and sexual attraction." But even so marriage was still unbelieved in for achieving sexual fulfillment or anything of that category. More details/evidence I have from the article is when the church declared Feb. 14th the official day of the St. Valentine's feast day in 498 A.D. and even then the church didn't attend for it to celebrate romance, They were still trying to keep love and romance rates down.
In my opinion this article is a very interesting read. It really talks about the birth and origins of the day of romance and now I know alot more about the day. However I didn't expect the origins of the day to be what they are because it was to my knowledge that Valentines Day was always the day of love but Valentine a Christian priest never expected the day to be that way at all.
This article actually reminded me of Halloween. I always thought Halloween was the day of candy and tricks/treats but according to my parents the day is much darker than most kids know. According to my parents and I'm sure many other people Halloween is the Devil's holiday and therefore I'm not really able to celebrate it unless im going to my church to celebrate it but as a young child I loved Halloween and everything about it because it was really fun to always used to go to nice looking neighborhoods and go back home with big bags filled of candy.
This article has helped me to think more deeply on the topic because like I've said before I've never had any knowledge of the origins of Valentines Day until now and now that I know more about it I must say that the day seems a little messed up from my perspective but other than that the read as I've said before once again is an interesting one.
However something I'd like to know is how the write of this article Stephanie Coontz got the facts for this article. How do you know this much about the holiday? Where did you get your knowledge? Has the form of knowledge been passed down from generation to generation?
Good post, but I think you misread the article just a little bit--for the point was to show that today, unlike in the pre-1800s, people expect to love, marry, and have sex with the person they love. There's a lot of talk that people are just out there "hooking up," but overall, people are pretty romantic today. 90
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