the origin of the family private property and the state by friedrich engels

I have, however, not only the detailed excerpts that Marx took from Morgan's work, but also his critical notes, which I reproduce here whenever appropriate'. (.) My work can only weakly replace the one my late friend never wrote. Marx was willing to set out, in person, the results of Morgan's research in relation to the conclusions of his (to some extent I can say our) materialistic analysis of history, thus clarifying its full scope. 'The following pages are, in a way, the execution of a will. Published in 1884 by Friedrich Engels, his main sources were the book 'Das Mutterrecht' ('The Matriarchy') by the Swiss Johann Jakob Bachofen, published in 1861, and in particular the 'Ancient Society', published in 1877, by the United States' Lewis Morgan, which Marx had read and noted abundantly, as Engels pointed out at the opening of the book: In times marked by superficiality, rejection of study and an embrace of obscurantist and fundamentalist theories, diving into this text is an intellectual balm, for which it reveals intuition and astuteness and the unavoidable contribution to the knowledge of the genesis of central social institutions - family, economy, State - and their relationship with oppression and exploitation.

From all his works, those he signed alone and those he shared with Marx, I want to underline the importance of 'The origin of the family, private property and the State', because it represents a remarkable intellectual undertaking, namely for contemporary feminist studies. By Alex1011, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsĮngels was born 200 years ago.

The origin of the family private property and the state by friedrich engels