Cupid and the Day of Love: Valentine's Day

The history of both Valentine's Day and Cupid go back thousands of years but are not typically associated with each other. So how did Cupid become associated with Valentines Day? Lets take a look at the history of Cupid. Cupid is a ancient Roman god. He is one of the son's of Venus, the goddess of love. He had arrows that he would shoot to make people either fall in love with each other or lust after each other, depending upon if he used his golden or lead arrows. In the legend and the stories about him, he has always been an adult, not a child. He also has been represented with and without wings. His wife is Psyche also a Roman goddess. She was once a human that he fell in love with.

So how did a legendary adult Roman god become to be a small winged baby that we see on Valentines Day cards? The tradition seemed to have started in the early 1800's in England where the first Valentines Day cards were made. They were hand made and since they were typically made by women they had cute babies, hearts and lots of lace on the cards. As the giving of cards grew and spread to the USA in the mid 1800's more and more cards had pictures of young children kissing to represent first love.

It appears that one of the card makers in the early 1900's in the USA started to add cherubs (baby angels) to the cards and soon added the bow and arrows from Cupid. Over time, Cupid was the name that became associated with the baby angels with bows and arrows.

Cupid had changed from an adult Roman god with full love passions for his wife to a baby with wings for the sake of selling Valentines Day cards. About the only thing that had remained the same was his bow and arrows that he used to make people falling in love with each other. You see the legendary Roman gods were not your loving all caring type of gods, they embodied all the faults of humans and hatred was one of the main ones. Cupid's main duty was to make sure that any beautiful human woman was not to be competition for the Roman goddesses. He met his wife because he was suppose to make her fall in love with a monster because she was so beautiful. Of course he fell in love with her instead.

So next time you see a Valentine's Day card with Cupid on it you can tell your friends about the adult Cupid that the babies with wings are named after.

For more information on the legends of Cupid visit the Cupid page at Wikepedia or visit the legend of Cupid and Psyche at The Mythology Guide.