Origins of the Family: A Marxist Perspective

Recorded May 24, 2023, in Toronto
Why do Marxists want to abolish the family? Engels described the emergence of the patriarchal family as humanity’s first counterrevolution.
For hundreds of thousands of years, private property, classes, and marriage, as we know it today, did not exist. The Neolithic revolution and introduction of agriculture laid the material basis for a division of labor and with it the emergence of social classes: exploiters and the exploited.
The ruling class needed a way to pass their accumulated wealth to their offspring, down the male line, which in turn necessitated a way to control reproduction by the domination of men over women. This is the historical basis for marriage and the family in its present form, and the continued attacks against women’s reproductive rights.
The family, private property, the state, and class society all have a shared origin. Today, we fight to free human relations from the shackles of oppression; and put them on a healthy basis under a socialist society.
Fightback is a revolutionary organization fighting for the socialist transformation of society. We are the Canadian section of the International Marxist Tendency. We actively seek to educate workers and youth in the genuine ideas of Marxism, in order to fight back against capitalist attacks and austerity.
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