courtly love

courtly love (uncountable)

1. A mediaeval European conception of noble and chivalrous love, generally secret and between members of the nobility.
   • 2005, Slavoj Žižek, The Metastases of Enjoyment: Six Essays on Women and Causality, Verso, →ISBN, page 89:

     The impression that courtly love is out of date, long superseded by modern manners, is a lure blinding us to how the logic of courtly love still defines the parameters within which the two sexes relate to each other.

• courtly love on Wikipedia.Wikipedia