Burden of European police about to arrest husband (5)
I believe the answer is:
theme
'burden' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'european police about to arrest husband' is the wordplay.
'european' becomes 'E' (abbreviation e.g. EU).
'police' becomes 'met' (I've seen this in other clues).
'about' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'to arrest' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'husband' becomes 'h'.
'e'+'met'='emet'
'emet' backwards is 'teme'.
'teme' enclosing 'h' is 'THEME'.
'of' is the link.
(Other definitions for theme that I've seen before include "Signature tune" , "Subject set for discussion" , "Musical motif" , "basis for variations" , "Topical item" .)