The present study aims at establishing a relation between the precarious education and the weak moral formation of the 19th century Portuguese ladies from the lower bourgeoisie. According to the writer and intellectual Eça de Queirós, the creation of romantic expectations influenced by the ultra-romantic novels led these women and heroines to try to represent in their lives the situations of illegitimate and extremely idealistic love affairs romantically described in the novels they read. In order to premise Eça de Queirós argument, his novel O primo Basílio was selected for this study as it establishes this communication through the creation of different characters and situations. Considering the importance of his fictional and not fictional works due to the constant studies of various moral and pedagogical aspects which kept Portugal far off from the modernity of the 19th century, the present study also considers part of the intellectual production of the author, his experiences both as a writer and journalist and his correspondence with intellectuals of his time about the topics mentioned above.