You can order a hamburger with an engagement ring

For $3,000, you can order a hamburger that comes with an engagement ring on the side.

Pauli’s, in Boston’s North End, will sell you a Big Boy burger with a 7/8 carat Neil Lane ring nestled in the bun. The ring is framed with round diamonds and a fourteen-carat gold band.

You’ve missed Valentine’s Day, however-the restaurant requires forty-eight hours’ notice.

Today’s holiday didn’t start with St. Valentine. Many historians think the tradition began more than two thousand years ago with an ancient Roman festival called Lupercalia. This holiday in turn inherited some of its traditions from an earlier festival called Februa, from which we get the name of “February.”

Lupercalia began each year when a pagan priest sacrificed goats and dogs to the goddess Juno. The hides of the animals were cut into strips by the priests. Women were then struck by these hides as they ran counterclockwise around Palatine Hill in Rome. This was supposed to make them more likely to have children.

The Romans celebrated Lupercalia until around AD 500, when Christian authorities brought it to an end. So, be grateful you don’t have to kill a dog or be flogged with its hide today. Valentine’s Day is a much nicer holiday.

However, a holiday is not necessarily a holy day.

The sexual revolution has no winners

The sexual revolution redefined love as a feeling rather than a commitment. Since research indicates that the feeling of love typically fades after about fifteen months, it’s inevitable that many will abandon their old commitment in search of new feelings.

The legalization of birth control pills in 1960 made it far easier for couples to have sex without fear of pregnancy. The advent of “no-fault divorce” in 1969 led to an enormous escalation in the divorce rate. The legalization of abortion in 1973 further encouraged promiscuity.

And pornography has become such a plague on our society that New York Times columnist Ross Douthat recently wrote an…