We do not know whether the writer would have agreed with American feminist Kate Millett’s quote: ‘Love has been the opium of women.’ But she does not seem far off in her essays. Martín Gaite notes that women have been seeking to fulfil their desire for freedom and recognition through love for centuries. 

However, love has not been defined by her, but by cultural models. Models that are, incidentally, deceptive: they promise fulfilment and end up promoting a continuous dependence on the male gaze. 

This article has been originally published in The Conversation