Basque-ing in the Love of Valentine’s Day

Fran Glaría | Traveling Steps

Image | Kostiantyn Li, Unsplash

February means Valentine’s Day, and that makes it an ideal opportunity to  talk about love—or at least about love-related issues—in the Basque Country.

Let me remind you about the story behind Valentine's day. We need to go back in time to the 3rd century, when, in the Roman Empire, young men would celebrate Lupercalia. It is said that this purification celebration used to take place on February 15 in the Roman calendar. Young men would gather in a sacred cave to sacrifice a ram in honor of “Luperco”, a wolf-like divinity who would help to ensure the fertility of their future spouses. 

At this time, Emperor Claudius II, besides forbidding the celebration of Lupercalia, also prohibited young couples from getting married. He thought that single men without responsibilities would make better soldiers. But we all know that young love is unstoppable and those crazy-in-love couples needed to get married before the men had to go to war. This is when father Valentine of Terni, although it was prohibited, celebrated weddings for them. In the end, Valentine was captured and martyred the day before Lupercalia (February 14th).

But what about love-related traditions in the Basque Country? Do we do anything special?

I have found one thing that we do differently from the rest of the world: over here we wear our wedding band on the right hand and not on the left one. There has to be at least one reason for this peculiar tradition. In fact, there are a couple of them.

The first reason is a historical one. Let’s go back to Paris, during the hot summer of 1572. It was August 18th and Notre Dame was ready to welcome the royal wedding between the future Queen of France, Marguerite De Valois, and the prince, Henry of Navarre.  

Any wedding should be a day of joy, happiness and big celebrations. Well, I guess this wedding was not going to be as joyful as expected. The tension was palpable, both in the streets of Paris and inside the Cathedral. It was well known that Marguerite was Catholic, while Henry was Protestant. This wedding was an attempt to pacify the Wars of Religion that were taking place throughout France and Europe.

Instead of bringing peace, the wedding brought disaster. Big riots took place in Paris between Catholics and Protestants. Violence escalated so much that on the night of August 23rd, Catherine of Medici, who was Margarite´s mother, ordered the mass assassination of the followers of her new son in law, Henry. This night is known in history as the St. Bartholomew´s Day Massacre.

As you can imagine, after the massacre, our hero (sorry, I am from Navarra, so in my eyes Henry is the hero in this story) needed to know who was supporting him. He could not go around asking if people were with him or against him, so Henry's followers made a subtle change. Instead of wearing their wedding bands on their left hand, they changed it to the right one. It was a discreet change with a very clear message: I support Henry and not Margarite.

The most international symbol of love, the wedding ring, was used to show the love and support for our King. By the way, King Henry of Navarre is known in history books as Henry IV of France.

The second reason why Navarrese wear the ring on their right hand is altogether more pragmatic. From my humble point of view, it is more romantic wearing it on the right hand than on the left one.

If I ask you why you wear your wedding band on your left hand, you will probably answer -because it is closer to your heart, and you love your spouse from the bottom of your heart. Well, this is exactly why we wear ours on the right hand…because it is furthest from the heart.

You must be thinking, “OK, these people are crazy!” Let me explain it to you.

We believe that the heart is such a powerful muscle that it can rule your entire life. The heart is uncontrollable, unpredictable and often capricious. The heart believes 100% in romantic love, in the love that we see in the movies. But let's not forget that those movies end on the wedding day. Nobody tells us what happens the day after the wedding nor ten years after. And where is that romantic love after fifty years?

So, why do you want your heart to rule your life? And more importantly, why do you let it rule who and how you love?

To me, the relationship with my wife is so important that I would rather sacrifice part of the power of my heart, and divert it into other things that I can hopefully control more easily. Things like intellectual love, physical love, or even a more platonic love. It is not that we do not believe in the power of romantic love, but if you base your relationship only on romanticism and it is ruled by an uncontrollable heart, if you have a “love heart attack,” then that will be the end of the relationship. 

For us, wearing our wedding bands on the right hand is a symbol of the most profound and complex love. 

Anyway, my friends, Happy Valentine’s Day! I really hope you love someone from the bottom of your heart……… and your soul!

If you want to read about Marguerite and Henry, there is a great book written by Alexander Dumas called La Reine Margot or Queen Margot that tells the story of the wedding and the days after. There is also an incredibly beautiful French film based on this novel. 

Here is a clip of the wedding ceremony from the film. It is one of my favorite scenes of all time.