If love means that one person absorbs the other, then no real relationship exists any more. Love evaporates; there is nothing left to love. The integrity of self is gone.

(1974) Housewife. London: Jonathan Cape. London: HarperCollins.

She has also made important contributions to debates about sociological research methods. She was educated at Somerville College Oxford University taking her BA in 1965 having married fellow future academic Robin Oakley the previous year. She has also written an early partial autobiography.