The origin of the family, private property, and the stateEngels, Friedrich
Philosophy
The origin of the family, private property, and the state
Engels, Friedrich
Families -- History; Morgan, Lewis Henry, 1818-1881. Ancient society; Prehistoric peoples; Property -- History; State, The
In our standard example, the American redskins of that time, we find the
gentile constitution fully developed. A tribe had differentiated into
several gentes, generally two. Through the increase of the population,
these original gentes again divided into several daughter gentes, making
the mother gens a phratry. The tribe itself split up into several
tribes, in each of which we again meet a large number of representatives
of the old gentes. In certain cases a federation united the related
tribes. This simple organization fully sufficed for the social
conditions out of which it had grown. It was nothing else than the
innate, spontaneous expression of those conditions, and it was well
calculated to smooth over all internal difficulties that could arise in
this social organization. External difficulties were settled by war.
Such a war could end in the annihilation of a tribe, but never in its
subjugation. It is the grandeur and at the same time the limitation of
the gentile order that it has no room either for masters or servants.
There were as yet no distinctions between rights and duties. The
question whether he had a right to take part in public affairs, to
practice blood revenge or to demand atonement for injuries would have
appeared as absurd to an Indian, as the question whether it was his duty
to eat, sleep, and hunt. Nor could any division of a tribe or gens into
different classes take place. This leads us to the investigation of the
economic basis of those conditions.
The population was very small in numbers. It was collected only on the
territory of the tribe. Next to this territory was the hunting ground
surrounding it in a wide circle. A neutral forest formed the line of
demarcation from other tribes. The division of labor was quite
primitive. The work was simply divided between the two sexes. The men
went to war, hunted, fished, provided the raw material for food and the
tools necessary for these pursuits. The women cared for the house, and
prepared food and clothing; they cooked, weaved and sewed. Each sex was
master of its own field of activity; the men in the forest, the women in
the house. Each sex also owned the tools made and used by it; the men
were the owners of the weapons, of the hunting and fishing tackle, the
women of the household goods and utensils. The household was
communistic, comprising several, and often many, families.[37] Whatever
was produced and used collectively, was regarded as common property: the
house, the garden, the long boat. Here, and only here, then, do we find
the "self-earned property" which jurists and economists have falsely
attributed to civilized society, the last deceptive pretext of legality
on which modern capitalist property is leaning.
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