Its 'material foundation' was the 'communistic household' headed by women. Drawing on the work of anthropologist Lewis Morgan, Engels argued that a 'predominancy of women generally obtained in primitive times'. Friedrich Engels gave a Marxist, that is a materialist, analysis of the 'woman question' in his pioneering work, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.Įngels wanted to trace the prehistoric roots of women's oppression, so he could prove wrong those who claimed women's inferior status was 'natural'. It's hard to combat that when history shows that not just the present capitalist system is to blame: in feudal society, and in earlier societies too, women occupied second place to men.īut in the late 19th Century, the work of anthropologists began to question that assumption.Įarly anthropologists began to speak of an earlier time when women, not men, ruled society. Men comfort themselves with the thought that women need looking after. To many people, it just seems natural that women are worse off- it's because of women's smaller size or their capacity to bear children. By Lilian ThomsonĪs long as recorded history has lasted, so too has women's oppression. How the oppression of women began, and what that implies for fighting oppression today.
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