In the eighteenth century, liberal advocates of sexual equality who were preoccupied with the struggle for the vote and with the assertion of rights on behalf of middle-class women, underestimated the material forces - in the market. as well as in the family - which militated against real independence and total participation for the majority of women. However, the ideals of rational fellowship and of romantic love covered the elements which associated women's liberation with fundamental changes in human relationships and in the political society.