Men Who Died For LOVE???

 I was sent a text this morning by a dear friend...and it read:

Message from the Association of Men
Valentine died for love
Romeo also died for love
Jack in titanic died for love
Samson in the Bible died for love,
Greek heroes Hercules & Archilles died 4 love
... & even Jesus Christ died for love...
Wetin !! ?? 

Haba !!! where are the women?
       Una no sabi die? 
       Abi na only gift Una sabi collect?
       After Una go talk say boys no dey try. 
       No Gift again this valentine unless 
       ......una give us 10 names of women wey die for love.

       Oya!I de wait..

I decided to look this up on Google and this covered the source of this text. It was originally posted on Nairaland by a gentleman named 'Lecturerdabo' You may click on Nairaland or Lecturedabo to visit the site.  Unfortunately there was no means I could ready find by which to respond to Lecturerdabo's interesting post so I decided to do it via my blog.

My response:
Response 1:
To correct a misconception....you have,
1:  'Jesus is no ordinary man. You cannot compare him with mere mortals'
2:  'HE died for ALL MANKIND' 

Response 2:  The rest of men in question

St. Valentine
Valentine (St Valentine): The reason St Valentine was killed (beheaded) was because he was marrying Christian couples and aiding Christians  who were being prosecuted  during the reign of Emperor Claudius II forbade it. "Apparently Claudius thought that married soldiers weren't as good as single soldiers"







Romeo (Romeo & Juliet): Romeo died after killing Paris (the man Juliet's family wanted her to marry) and seeing Juliet looked dead. If he was so in-love why did he not take her with him when he was exiled from Verona. After all they were already married (secret or no secret).
He died because he did something stupid (kill someone) and failed to realise Juliet was not dead. Act of love, I think not. Act of fear, stupidity, pride....I think so. 

The film poster shows a man and a woman hugging over a picture of the Titanic's bow. In the background is a partly cloudy sky and at the top are the names of the two lead actors. The middle has the film's name and tagline, and the bottom contains a list of the director's previous works, as well as the film's credits, rating, and release date.
Jack (In titanic): Jack and Rose first witness the ship collide with an iceberg. They decide to warn her mother and Carl (her Fiancé. Cal plants a necklace on Jack and accuses him of stealing it. Jack is arrested and handcuffed to a pipe down in the Master-at-arms's office.
1. Rose runs away from her mother who had boarded a life boat to release Jack.
2. Jack persuades Rose to board a lifeboat but as the boat was lowered and she discovers Jack wasn't coming, she jumps back on board the titanic to be with him.
3. When the ship broke in half, Jack and Rose rode the stern side of the ship (which had risen 90 degree into the air) into the sea. Unfortunately, Jack died of hypothermia not for love! In fact Juliet gave up her freedom from the sinking ship twice to be with Jack - now THAT is love.


Samson (In Samson & Delilah): Samson died of stupidity not love. First he was not interested in Delilah but her more beautiful sister ...he even told her so. After the sister was now beyond his reach, he then claims he was hopelessly in love with Delilah (that sounds like the claims of a horny man)
Besides how many times was Delilah going to call the Philistines on him (each time he revealed the secret of his strength) before he realised that she was setting a trap for him (that is plain stupidity of a very horny man who couldn't see beyond his short sticks)
Samson died because he found an opportunity to kill more Philistines than he ever taught he would be fortunate to ever get. He pushed the two central pillars (on which the Temple of Dagon stood) down subsequently killing himself and more Philistines than he ever did.

Archilles (Greek heroes): Achilles died because Paris (the son of Priam, King of Troy) hide in the bushes and shot Achilles' heel with a divine arrow (guided by the god Apollo), killing him. Apparently, Paris would have to give up Helen (Queen of Sparta) if Achilles married his sister (Polyxena, a Trojan princess). Another theory could be that Paris shot Achilles because he killed his bother Hector.
So Archilles was killed because of another man's hatred and not because he was in love.
One of the most famous depictions of Heracles, originally by Lysippos (Marble, Roman copy called Hercules Farnese, 216 CE)


Hercules (Greek heroes): Hercules died because of ignorance and revenge, again not because of Being in love. Ignorance on the part of his wife and hatred on the part of the centaur. When Hercules' wife suspected that Hercules was interested in another woman, she put the blood of a centaur (who had kidnapped and tried to rape her) on Hercules' tunic hoping it was a love potion that would return her husband's love to her. But the Centaur had tricked her. It was actually poison from the arrow that Hercules had killed the centaur with.
The poison burnt his skin exposing his bones and leaving him in agony but did not kill him as he was partly a god. He built himself a funeral pyre which his friend Poeas lit. His body burnt leaving his immortal body.

Response 3:
Further more, I will answer that question once a MAN can show me ONE man who has been selfless enough to carry a child from conception to birth (40 weeks)...sharing their food, protecting the child, etc....then going through the awful pains of child birth.
There is NO LOVE more pure, more selfless, more giving and less idiotic than a WOMAN'S LOVE. 
So, buying a woman a valentine's present, birthday present, mother's day gift, flowers -just-because, taking her out on occasions (date-nights) is the very least ANY MAN can do to show your appreciation.

Further read:
1: The dark origins of valentine's day
2: How did Achilles die?