/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13585192]

In The Origin of the Family, Engels says monogamous marriage was the first form of oppression, it was the oppression of women by men. Was he right?

[Anonymous No.13585198]

He doesn't say this. Someone said he said this and you believed them.

[Anonymous No.13585219]

>>13585198
He does say this

>Thus when monogamous marriage first makes its appearance in history, it is not as the reconciliation of man and woman, still less as the highest form of such a reconciliation. Quite the contrary. Monogamous marriage comes on the scene as the subjugation of the one sex by the other; it announces a struggle between the sexes unknown throughout the whole previous prehistoric period. In an old unpublished manuscript, written by Marx and myself in 1846, I find the words: “The first division of labor is that between man and woman for the propagation of children.” And today I can add: The first class opposition that appears in history coincides with the development of the antagonism between man and woman in monogamous marriage, and the first class oppression coincides with that of the female sex by the male.

[Anonymous No.13585405]

>>13585219
>oh no I have to stay at home and cook woe is me :(
Do any of the Marxists understand labourers at all?

[Anonymous No.13585556]

>>13585192
pretty much yeah
debt, property, gender division, writing etc all rise out of the curse of sedentary agriculture.

[Anonymous No.13585561]

>>13585405
Do you think labourers just spawn into their workplace as fully formed, clothed, speaking adults?

[Anonymous No.13585607]

>>13585219
>Literally just made-up anthropology and psychology
Why the fuck did enlightenment philosophers do this?

[Anonymous No.13585648]

Well, in a full causal sense, it goes further than that. In chapter 2 he traces the condition of developments which led up to monogamy in the first place:
>If the first advance in organization consisted in the exclusion of parents and children from sexual intercourse with one another, the second was the exclusion of sister and brother. On account of the greater nearness in age, this second advance was infinitely more important, but also more difficult, than the first. It was effected gradually, beginning probably with the exclusion from sexual intercourse of own brothers and sisters (children of, the same mother) first in isolated cases and then by degrees as a general rule (even in this century exceptions were found in Hawaii), and ending with the prohibition of marriage even between collateral brothers and sisters, or, as we should say, between first, second, and third cousins.
>There can be no question that the tribes among whom inbreeding was restricted by this advance were bound to develop more quickly and more fully than those among whom marriage between brothers and sisters remained the rule and the law. How powerfully the influence of this advance made itself felt is seen in the institution which arose directly out of it and went far beyond it -- the gens, which forms the basis of the social order of most, if not all, barbarian peoples of the earth and from which in Greece and Rome we step directly into civilization.
>But these customary pairings were bound to grow more stable as the gens developed and the classes of “brothers“ and “sisters” between whom marriage was impossible became more numerous. The impulse given by the gens to the prevention of marriage between blood relatives extended still further.
etc. etc.

Essentially, the move away from incest was the first misstep that led to class oppression and the nightmare of class exploitation we live today. The only way to regain this primeval equality and equanimity is to bring back the purest, most originary love - the love between nuclear family members.

[Anonymous No.13587095]

>>13585219
>>13585405
i skimmed through the origins of family (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch02d.htm)) and it seems that engels isn't talking about muh women staying at home and cooking but more about how capitalism -in order to maximize profit- removes the "human" part of family and it turns it into labor, property and slavery relationship instead of a mutual relationship built on cooperation and love.
he compares marriage to class struggle because at that time a woman (commodity) was bought by the highest buyer (porky) to give children and take care of them (labor) while being only given her subsistence and having 0 determination.

[Anonymous No.13587717]

>>13585648
Absurd. I see no reason to believe that family incest, especially parental incest, was the norm at any point. Completely unfalsifiable claim

[Anonymous No.13587724]

>>13587095
>capitalism in the bronze age

[Anonymous No.13587729]

>>13585192
>Engels says monogamous marriage was the first form of oppression, it was the oppression of women by men. Was he right?
No, it was the first oppression of men by women.

[Anonymous No.13588237]

>>13585192
If anything it was the oppression of men by women who forced them to choose one to fuck for each.
Or rather, it was men biting the bullett for the sale of society as they always do while women were ungrateful as they always are.
Friendly reminder that in a state of nature outside of laws and societies nothing stops even the grossest fat incel here from fuvking daily by Just beating the shit out of the women who don't want him.

[Anonymous No.13588246]

>>13587717
It was just a window into Hegel's fetishes i suppose

[Anonymous No.13588255]

>>13585405
Sure. Picrel, it is an accurate depiction of emotional labour.

[Anonymous No.13588275]

>>13587095
>Hunter-gatherers were capitalist
Capitalism really is just a boogeyman for "anything i dont like" huh

[Anonymous No.13588283]

>>13585192
Sort of, but it was the oppression of men by women. Read Kierkegaard.

[Anonymous No.13589559]

>>13588283
based