The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

Description

In this provocative and now-classic work, Friedrich Engels explores the interrelated development of the family and the state from ancient society to the Victorian era. Drawing on new anthropological theories of his time, Engels argued that matriarchal communal societies had been overthrown by class society and its emphasis on private, not communal, property and monogamous, rather than polygamous, sexual organization. This historical development, Engels argued, constituted "the world-historic defeat of the female sex." A masterclass in the application of materialist thought to history and anthropology, and touching on love, monogamy, property, and the development of the human, this landmark work is still foundational in Marxist and socialist feminist theory.

Frederick Engels was born in 1820, and a major supporter of Karl Marx. He edited the second and third volumes of Capital. He died while working on the fourth volume in 1895. Jennifer Doyle is Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside. She has curated exhibitions for the Vincent Price Art Museum and The Broad Museum, and is a member of the Board of Directors at Human Resources, Los Angeles, a space dedicated to performance-based art. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, and her books include Campus Sex, Campus Security and Sex Objects.