The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, was a work that was provocative for its time and yet it has become a profoundly influential critique of the nuclear family. Friedrich Engels takes you on a thought provoking tour through the evolution of human society into the traditional patriarchal system we take for granted as ever-existing and connects its development with the rise of capitalist societies. Engels conclusions are that the patriarchal system will wither away with the elimination of private ownership of the means of production; or as Engels puts it, when: “a new generation has grown up; a generation of men who never in all their lives have had occasion to purchase a woman’s surrender either with money or with any other means of social power; and a race of women who have never been obliged to surrender to any man out of any consideration other than that of real love, or to refrain from giving themselves to their lovers for fear of the economic consequences.”