One aspect of contract law plainly demands an open and direct engagement with questions of public policy. This is the question of when, for policy reasons, the courts have refused to enforce agreements that otherwise meet all the requirements of valid contracts. Modern accounts of contract law have tended to marginalize this aspect of the subject, visualizing it as impliedly a small island in a wide sea of enforceability. But this is not the only way of looking at the matter. Compliance with public policy might plausibly be presented as a primary, or even a threshold requirement for the creation of enforceable obligations.