Posted: Monday 13 February 2012
The history of St Valentine’s Day is somewhat mysterious
By Lynsey Kerr
Robbie blogged last week about his love for Hearts but this week, with the onset of Valentine’s Day, it seems that the trainees have different hearts on their minds. The discussions in the café at lunch time lately have turned to how the trainees are spending Valentine’s Day. The boys seem to have forgotten what romance is, with a recurring theme of watching football on Tuesday night with the lads and leaving their girlfriends to dream of a romantic dinner for two with their other halves.
The origins of Valentine’s Day
Having searched online, it seems that the history of St Valentine’s Day is somewhat mysterious. There is evidence of both Christian and Roman origins. A common story seems to be that a priest named Valentine continued to marry couples despite Emperor Claudius having passed a law against marriage. Valentine was imprisoned for this and during that time he made friends with the prison guard’s daughter. On the day he died (14 February 269 A.D.), Valentine wrote a note to thank her for her friendship while he was in prison and signed it “Love from Your Valentine”. As a mark of respect, people started to write letters to their loved ones each year on 14 February as a sign of love or friendship and in memory of St Valentine’s legacy to defy Emperor Claudius and the law against marriage.
Valentine at work today
Marriage has changed dramatically since St Valentine’s time. Obviously it is no longer illegal to get married and a wedding is certainly far from a quiet affair with only a priest, a bride and a groom. The average wedding today costs in the region of £20,000, a figure I am sure will increase after the new season of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding!
Despite Emperor Claudius’ law against marriage having long since ceased, the trend seems to be that fewer people are opting to get married and instead choose to live with their partner without getting married. In March I will be joining the Family Law team for my final seat of my traineeship and I am sure that I will be learning much more about not only marriage and cohabitation but divorce, separation, civil partnerships and pre-nuptial agreements, the laws of which have certainly moved on since St Valentine’s lifetime!
My current seat in Private Client has shown me that on a basic level, the law of Succession provides for spouses and civil partners and not for cohabitants. A recent change to the law of Succession increases the rights of civil partners and spouses in the estate of the deceased if there is no Will, although this can have detrimental effects to your children’s inheritance. Even if you are leaving all of your estate to your spouse or civil partner, the process to do so is much simpler, quicker and cheaper if you have a Will.
If it is one thing that I have learned from my time in private client, the only way for you to ensure that your cohabitees, spouses, partners, children, loved ones and/or friends are provided for when you die is to write a Will. There is enough material on the topic of writing a Will for a whole other blog entirely, but the factsheet helpfully summarises the key points.
So after all this talk of St Valentine’s Day, I hope that it will act as a reminder to the trainee boys that Tuesday is not just for watching football but for romantic gestures and writing love letters!
