ROMANTIC DIVORCE: THE EARLY YEARS: “We declare and affirm, by the tenour of these presents, that love cannot extend its rights over two married persons. For indeed lovers grant one another all things mutually and freely, without being impelled by any motive of necessity, whereas husband and wife are held by their duty to submit their wills to each other and to refuse each other nothing.

“May this judgement, which we have delivered with extreme caution, and after consulting with a great number of other ladies, be for you a constant and unassailable truth, Delivered in this year 1174, on the third day before the Kalends of May, Proclamation VII.”

–Judgment of a “court of love” in the house of the Countess of Champagne, quoted in Denis de Rougemont’s awesome book Love in the Western World, which I’m about 2/3 of the way through.