CUSTOMARY RESTRAINTS ON CELIBACY.
In Hamlet (Act iv. Scene 5) Ophelia sings:
To-morrow is St. Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window
To be your valentine."
This song, possibly a folk-song or an adaptation of one, calls to mind a motif very common in Indian pictures and folk-tales of the woman visiting her lover, instead of being visited by him. The chivalry of the Oriental does not preclude his saying, "The woman tempted me," indeed such a phrase does not necessarily involve any disparagement of her conduct, and in Indian writings on art "she who goes out to seek her lover (Sanskr. abhisārika) is one of the recognised standard types of womanhood. Apparently then Ophelia's song records a well-recognised custom which privileged a maid to visit a bachelor.
How this usage came to attach itself to St. Valentine's day is not at present explicable, but the maid's privilege suggests a survival of the power possessed by women of the Valentian gens whose presence brought health to a sick person. Ex hypothesi such women must have been unmarried, as on marriage they would cease to belong to that gens, unless indeed it was also acquired on marriage by women of other gentes married by a Valens. Against this suggestion there is however the fact that so far no evidence has come to light to connect the Saint with the Valentian gens. It is ingeniously suggested by Mr. G. W. Marshall
