Ah, there's nothing like romance. It's all about love, sex, and attachment. But like romance itself,

Valentine's Day has been a work in progress. It wasn't always candy, roses, and a night out.

2,500 years ago, it was all about fertility. And who wouldn't be turned on in ready to go

after getting slapped with a bloody animal skin?

Put a big red bow on that for me. I'm Betty Steele. How Romance has evolved. That's next on the backstory.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.

We're back with the backstory.

As I keep insisting, we all want the same things in life.

Shelter, food, and love.

That's true, no matter the place and time in which we find ourselves.

It's just that how that plays out means different things to different people, and it played out

really differently depending on when you lived. I know a lot of us these days brush romance aside,

but secretly, we kind of dream of the perfect connection. Now, here's the thing. Attachment is

ancient. In fact, apes were first in line. They evolved the ability to

become emotionally attached to one another. As humans appeared, we maintained those attachments,

mostly because it helped us, and the apes, survive. We all need our team, right?

Later, through thousands of years and right up until the 1700s, marriage

became a thing, but for much of that time, it was pure business. Romance wasn't even a consideration

when it came to marriage. A lot of times people married people they didn't even know.

The earliest beginnings of Valentine's Day, though, happened in Roman times in the

6th century BC, which was what, at least in our eyes, was a pretty unromantic and very bloody

pagan fertility festival. Every year, between February 13th and 15th, Romans celebrated Lupercalia.

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