Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is used to illustrate several connected theses regarding the relation of the couple to its surrounding social group: these include a couple's oedipal rebellion, the unconscious longing for and hatred of the idealized couple by the large group, the denial of aggression within the couple and its projection onto the group, the impotence of rationality and the conventionalization of sexuality in the large group, and the pervading dynamics of aggression in group formation. Pertinent psychoanalytic theories are briefly summarized, and this combined analysis is applied to the psychoanalyst's attitude regarding adolescent patients' love life.