How did Spanish radicals of the middle of the nineteenth century imagine the world? What did they think the men and women who inhabited it were like, and should be like? What difficulties did they foresee, what possibilities, what rights and obligations? Like all the "families" of Spanish liberalism in the era, the radicals sought to construct a new national order, prosperous and cohesive, in contrast to the pervasive instability generated by the revolutionary process that had begun in 1808. This would involve the articulation of a whole series of political, economic, social, and cultural reforms, but would also include the definition of the terms of a particular sexual contract, which would establish the place and functions of men and women, and so guarantee the progress of the fatherland. It was the men and women of Spain who made up and defined the nation, who could bring about its splendour or decline, and, ultimately, determine its status on the international stage. For this reason, it was also necessary to define the moral qualities and standards of behaviour that were required in order to maintain the nation on the path of progress and confront any possible obstacles and dangers of regression and corruption. If newspapers, pamphlets, and manifestos were the primary vehicles for delineating the reforms that were considered necessary, novels constituted a privileged medium for clarifying the desirable norms of ethics and conduct. Hence they are an indispensable resource for gaining insight into the plurality of images of masculinity and femininity that existed in this era, and for re-evaluating the construction and conceptualization of the public/private spheres in nineteenth-century Spain.Our understanding of these questions, up to now, has been marked by an oscillation between two poles. On one side, a stereotypical vision (which enjoyed hegemonic status in nineteenth-century romanticism) of the men and women of Southern Europe as beings who were violent, passionate, sensual, superstitious, and indolent, which was contrasted with the hard-working nature, self-control, and rationality of the inhabitants of more northerly countries (Andreu, 2016a). On the other, the interpretations that, since the beginnings of historical studies on women in Spain, around 1980, have accepted a little uncritically the validity