The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
Engels, Friedrich More by this author...£14.99Discusses private property and its relationship to the subjugation of women and analyzes the rise of the territorial state, in a new edition of a classic work of 19th-century socialist thougt.
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), was a provocative and profoundly influential critique of the Victorian nuclear family. Engels argued that the traditional monogamous household was in fact a recent construct, closely bound up with capitalist societies. Under this patriarchal system, women were servants and, effectively, prostitutes.
Only Communism would herald the dawn of communal living and a new sexual freedom and, in turn, the role of the state would become superfluous.