ST Feb 20, 2005

The price of love
LOVE cost about $50 last Monday. On Valentine's Day, that was the minimum price of six stems of flowers. Apparently, though, they are not enough to earn the love of many working women these days. That is because Valentine's Day has become something of a competitive sport as women compare the prices and sizes of bouquets of roses, tulips or lilies. The sport benefits those in the business of romance, of course. Prices get doubled on Valentine's Day. So great is the pressure to be feted that, at one end of the romantic spectrum, single and unattached women end up sending themselves flowers. At the other end, when a woman calls a florist about the value of bouquets, it often means she has received flowers from different men. She obviously wants to know who has spent how much on her.

Now, there is no reason why the cost of loving should not keep pace with the cost of living. And why should roses be any different from the jewellery and creature comforts by which some women judge the worth of eligible men? In any case, it is difficult to see how Valentine's Day can escape the logic of commercialisation that has invaded festivals both religious and secular around the world. However, something rankles when a price war over love breaks out on a day meant to commemorate a person, probably a Roman priest, who was put to death in AD269 for marrying young couples. Marriage, it was thought then, made young men weak soldiers. Romance today, it seems, remains a battleground, with the price of roses on the market outweighing the intrinsic qualities of the hands presenting them. All is fair in love and war, but what would valiant Valentine have said to his memory being consigned to a market in love?