Love and Law in Europe

Although the Treaty of Rome and the 1989 treaty on the social dimensions of the European Community would guarentee the freedom of mobility for labourers in Europe, the statistics show that very few persons who were citizens of member states actually moved. Observations of people's motivations for movement seemed to indicate love relations presented as much of an attraction for movement as did work relations. However, the power of love to move people had not received much attention in jurisprudential theory, and certainly not of legal protection. During the process of the two Danish referenda on the Maastricht treaties in 1992 and 1993, there was discussion of what seemed a lack of political and emotional support for the European Union, especially amongst Danish women. A female "passion for Europeanism" seemed weak, though there were strongly held emotions and passions among both men and women related to the development of and further integration of a European community and union by legal means. There were also discussions about the non-rational and supposedly rather emotional character of the votes cast during the referenda.
The first referenda became an example and a lesson about the political importance of public sentiment. A sentiment that has thus far been expected to change due to information and rational arguements from politicians and legal and economic experts. The essays that make up this volume deal with various aspects of the field of love and law. They focus mostly on the philosophy of law, legal theory, legal history and immigration law.