This book provides an overview of the developments in family law in Europe during the last two millennia. It aims to examine the so-called 'cultural constraints argument', which suggests that family law is unsuitable for harmonisation because the family laws of the European countries are deeply imbedded in their unique national cultures and history. It follows the path of the greatest-ever harmonisation event in European legal history: the creation of the medieval canon family law, and shows how, under the impact of pan-European economic, cultural and ideological trends, medieval uniformity...