ABSTRACT
The whole of this book is, of course, about the rules of love. We started exploring these in the Introduction, when we looked at the current state of relationships. In Chapter 1 we considered how our rules of relating to ourselves were important in our capacity to love, and be loved by, other people. In the last chapter, we focused on one aspect of the rules of love: the importance of physical attraction. The rest of this book will consider several aspects of the ideal love relationship for which we are encouraged to strive: rules about the kind of sex we should be having, the gender roles we should follow, monogamy, commitment, and how to deal with confl ict and break-up. Before looking at those specifi c aspects, however, we need to consider the general rules of love: what are we looking for from love, and how do we imagine that it happens?
