The Laws of Love: A Brief Historical and Practical Manual (Language, Discourse, Society)

You are at a dinner with someone attractive. She suddenly kisses you. Or he leans unexpectedly across the table and caresses your thigh. Whatever. You know the kind of encounter and the range of possible responses. Consider the kiss. What does it mean, and where does it lead? Does kissing necessarily imply more, and if so how much? These and similar questions of amorous ethics and erotic disquisition are the central to our everyday intimate public lives and they are the lost object of the law of love, the lex amatoria collated and presented here. Your guest at dinner kisses you. What does it mean? Where does it lead? Does kissing necessarily imply more, and if so how much? These and similar questions of amorous ethics and erotic disquisition are central to our everyday intimate public lives and they are the lost object of the law of love, the lex amatoria collated and presented here. From medieval literary accounts to modern day problems with the legal standing of acts of love under question throughout, this title presents a radical theory of how love and the erotic have been dealt with in law, and sanctioned in everyday experience