We find the family losing ground as an industrial unit with the development of the factory. Men became more conscious of their social relations outside the home, and came to appreciate the advantage and necessity of social compacts. These changed relations growing out of the new industrial life gave rise to a spirit of democracy which emphasized the importance of the individual and his social relations. It was a large factor in developing the political rights of men and later of women. The eighteenth century witnessed a crusade for political rights. Practically all the serious thinkers of the day were forced to consider the extension to all men of political rights which had up to this time been based on high property qualifications. The great material prosperity of northern Europe was at the expense of the laboring classes who were forced to resist or to succumb to hopeless slavery. It was a class struggle and fought out on those lines. Women took an active part in it and were emphatic in their claims for their husbands, sons, and brothers but the literature of the time does not show a consciousness on the part of working women of an antagonism between their interests and those of men. On the eve of the French Revolution Condorcet made a demand for the political emancipation of women. “In 1789, at election time, several pamphlets appeared demanding the admission of women to the States General, and protesting against the holding of a national assembly, from which half of the nation was excluded.”[111] The plea for the political rights of women was made on the ground of the rights of equality, but the right to vote was not thought of as an instrument for self protection in the economic world. On the other hand the struggle on the part of men had a real economic basis. It was economic pressure that goaded them to political struggle whereas with women it was merely a declaration of rights expressing the spirit of democracy of the times. Among its adherents were men and women of superior intelligence, but the masses showed the indifference they usually show to claims of abstract rights. In England the municipal reform act of 1869 gave women votes in all municipal elections. The act of 1870 gave them votes for school boards. The act of 1888, made them voters for the county council. The act of 1894, which transformed the whole system of local government and vastly extended the system of local representation, abolished in all its departments the qualification of sex.[112]