Valentine's Day is being the most popular festival all over the world. It is celebrated every year on Feb 14, especially by a couple of romantic love. This annual festival is based on the life event of a catholic priest, Saint Valentine. Different couple celebrates it differently. On the auspicious of this festival, couples exchange the gift. In this article, I focus on the secret and the science of gift-giving. Why a beloved transfer gift? How it plays a significant role in relationship? How it binds the couple?
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| Valentine day gift |
Gift has a very long history. We can see different gift-giving culture in a different society. It is very interesting to know the power of gifts. I am going to share this. If someone gives the gift, do you think, he/she just gives only an object? Is there anything attached to the gift? Generally, we see only an object which is transferred as a gift. But the gift is not only limited within this boundary. The French sociologist and anthropologist Marcel Mauss argues that in gift-giving, the giver does not merely give an object, but also part of himself, for the object is indissolubly tied to the giver. So, when someone gives the gift to a beloved one on Valentine's day, the giver does not only give a gift but also part of himself, which ultimately helps beloved as a couple to bond with each other.
Spiritual mechanism of gift.
The gift has not only physical dimensions. What is given in a visible form is not the only gift. The attached invisible form of the gift is also transferred to the receiver by the giver. According to Mauss, the gift is a "total presentation", imbued with "spiritual mechanisms", engaging the honor of both giver and receiver. This implies that the gift is not only a physical object but also a spiritual which produces magical power to reciprocate binding the couple. Newton's third law of motion states, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The gift which is given has a reaction that makes the receiver to reciprocate. Love is a connection of two souls. Couples want them to connect. Gift helps couples to connect them strongly.
The gift is never free.
Whether you give any kinds of object as a gift, according to Mauss, gift is never free. Free object is weightless. Free object does not possess the power. But due to nature, the gift is not free, it acts like a magnet. Newton's third law also verifies that gifts cannot be free. Every action reacts. To reciprocate is a reaction. What you give, returns. When you go to the market, why you exchange money for the object you desire? Why you cannot bring an object without money? Simply, because it is not free. What you see around the market is not free. So, you have to pay for anything you bring. You are ready to pay for it, aren't you? You exchange money for the object you desire. In the same way in gift-giving, what the object is given to the beloved one is not free even if it seems so. This creates the power to reciprocate which binds the couple with each other as if they are connected by an invisible thread.
The inalienable nature of the gift.
There is also an exchange in the market, but it is vastly different from gift exchange. How? In the market, we exchange money and object(goods). It is merely an exchange of objects. Nothing more than it. There is no bond between the object and the giver. The actor who gives is worthless. There is no concern of the giver, but only of objects to be exchanged. But in gift-giving, there is a strong bond between giver and gift. Who is the giver? The identity of the giver is tied to the object of the gift. When you buy something in the market, you buy it with full ownership, don't you? The right and ownership are transferred fully from the owner(giver) to you. So, the object is alienated from the giver. But in gift-giving, the object is unalienated from the giver. The object is not sold but loaned which creates a responsibility to reciprocate to the receiver. This inalienable nature helps to bind couples to each other.
In conclusion, gift is not only a physical object. There is also spiritual mechanisms imbued in the gift. In gift-giving, one does not only give an object but also part of himself. Whether the couples are aware of it or not, gift amazingly binds them.