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

The laws of Venus, to give them their proper name, have a venerable and lengthy history and there are ample if now somewhat understudied records of their courts and practices. To gain an initial sense of the scope of this history and the nature of these practices we have to return to the philosophical tradition, to Plato, and there trace the roots of a law that later spanned the courts of Europe and gave rise to the most enduring of forms of poetic justice.