Some men don’t like buying women flowers for Valentine’s Day. For many men, flowers lack practicality, destined to sit in a vase with no obvious purpose. They opt, rather, for tangible, edible, or useful gifts, like chocolate or jewelry. But at Hillsdale, where we seek beauty and truth for their own sake, it is clear that men should pick flowers for their sweetheart this weekend.
Flowers represent natural beauty and vitality so absent from Michigan winters. A bouquet is a simple way to communicate beauty, and a gift that is living, fragrant, and vivid. An Evolutionary Psychology study showed that flowers affect happiness, increasing their recipient’s genuine gratitude and delight. They also improve mood, productivity, and even memory while decreasing anxiety.
Though flowers are beautiful while they last, they also wither in time. As flowers bring blooms of youth, they also remind one of mortality, which is important for life and relationships, somber as it may sound. Relationships will one day pass away, wither and fade, ultimately with hope of new life. After all, Feb. 14 is the feast of St. Valentine, an early Church martyr killed for performing Christian marriages under the Emperor Claudius. The day itself reminds us that love requires sacrifice, possibly even unto death, or at least a dying to one’s self. The life-and-death cycle of flowers imitates this paradox.
Finally, the gift of flowers is more romantic and thoughtful. In the Victorian era, lovers silently communicated with flowers, each with its own meaning and language. Countless love poems concern flowers; no good love poem has ever been about chocolates. Mistresses have been compared to damask roses, but never to pralines and truffles. A bouquet can be a very personalized, rich, and melodious gift.
As always, it all depends on the woman. She may prefer something else anyway. And, although that which we call chocolate by any other name would taste as sweet, flowers are just more romantic, more chivalrous, and more fitting for a day when life, death, and love all hang in the twang of Cupid’s bow.
