Social networks, or the kin, friends, and other close associates of primary partners (e.g., spouses), can have an important influence on the internal character of an intimate relationship or marriage. Elizabeth Bott was among the first to recognize this connection in a study conducted in the early 1950s that involved interviews with 20 London families. In a now classic hypothesis she argued that the extent of the segregation in the role relationship of husband and wife varied directly with the connectedness of the family's social network. Spouses with separate networks, where members knew one another (i.e., highly interconnected or dense networks), were thought to enact relatively separate conjugal roles, to perform household labor separately, and to engage in separate leisure activities. In contrast, spouses with low-density networks were thought to have relatively joint conjugal roles, to jointly perform household labor, and to share leisure activities.