he Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State b/ Frederick氏r roduction by Evelyn Reed PATHFINDER PRESS New york·Lo
HS 197a↓ CONTENTS iNTROdUCTion by Evelyn Reed Note on the translation THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY AND THE STATE reface to the first Edition 1884 Preface to the Fourth Edition 1891 V. Prehistoric Stages of Culture III. The Iroquois Gens IV. The Grecian Gens V. The Rise of the Athenian Copyright e 1972 by Pathfinder Press VI. The Gens and the State 118 如 VIL. The Gens among the Celts and Germans ess Catalog Card No. 72-85711 TIIL.The Formation of the State Among the Germans 1 IX. Barbarism and Civilization 148 Manufactured in the United States of America Appendix(newly translated) A Recently Discovered Case of Group Marriage(by F. First edition 1972 THE PART PLAY ED BY LABOUR IN THE TRANSITION athfinder Press FROM APE TO MAN 410 West Street, New York, New York 10014 iddle East Pathfinder, 47 The Cut, London, SE1 BLL, England Subject Index 187 Leichhardt, Sydney, NSW 2040, Australia Pathfinder, P. O Box 9300, Station A, Toronto, Ont., M5W 2C7, Canada New Zealand Pilot Books, Box 8730. Aucklan amont Library
NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION human being or humanity is the meaning clearly intended are the lation and not of the original The preface to the fourth (1891)edition of Engels's Origin of the Family contains references to Urgeschichte(prehistory or primitive story)and praehistoriker (prehistorians, students of In the International Publishers 1942 translation, these terms are rendered as"anthropology"and"anthropologist"(pp. 16, 17). The terms used to describe the study of primitive peoples and prehistory diverge widely between German-Seandinavian-Russia iet usage, on the one hand, and Anglo-American usage, on the other. Engels' s background is clearly the former, and is THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY continued in this context in Soviet usage. PRIVATE PROPERTY AND THE STATE In the German and Soviet usage, ethnography is the general science of the study of primitive peoples, particularly the descriptive spects, and ethnology is the same, with emphasis on long-te PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 1884 historical views. For example, the Soviet periodical in the field is ovetskaya Etnologiye Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy The following chapters constitute, in a sense, the fulfilment of Sciences. Prehistory is ethnology applied to inferential studie a bequest. It was no less a person than Karl Marx who had planne of peoples and cultures now extinct, and is covered as readily to present the results of Morgan's researches in connection with he conclusions arrived at by his own-within certain limits I might Toprosy Istorii(Problems of History) as in Sovetskaya Etnologiya Anthropology is a term restricted to the study of comparative ay our own-materialist investigation of history and thus make human and humanoid anatomy, measuring skulls, studying dis- clear for the first time their whole significance. For Morgan redis tribution of blood types, ete. In Anglo-American contexts, strongly marked by antihistorical Coweta nat had been discovered by Marx forty years ago, and in piricism and positivism, historical interests are deprecated. Pre- his comparison of barbarism and civilization was led by this con- tion to the same conchusions, in the main points, as Marx had story does not exist, outside of archaeology. Anthropology is the This is subdivided into and persistently hushed up on the part of the official economists material anthropology (study of artifacts), physical anthropology in Germany, so was Morgan's Ancient Society treated by the spokes- men of "prehistoric"science in England. My work (study of kinship systems and functional relations in society ) cultural anthropology (social anthropology of slightly broader tined to accomplish. However, I have before me, in his exten scope), economic an gy, etc. Anglo-American ethnohistory ive extracts from morgan, critical notes which I reproduce here loes not go beyond collecting documents dealing with the recen wherever this is at all possibl rimitive peoples, without drawing long-term inferences facter co histo t is,the he last resort:ptdr甲hg of primitive peoples prior to 1900, and ethnographers a term of corn. A handful of American scholars (Lowie, Kroeber J. Steward, M. Sahlins, L. White, E. Service, M. Harris, and of course L. Morgan)would qualify as ethnologists of sorts. ifficult to obtai ondon hor died a few years ago. [Note by Er published in kusai tn ksas ser mark Engels, vol. Ix. -Ed ety
ORIGIN OF FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY AND STATE 27 tion of immediate life. But this itself is of a twofold character. On with Greece and Rome I have not limited myself to Morgan's data the one hand, the production of the means of subsistence, of food, but have added what I had at my disposal. The sections dealin clothing and shelter and the tools requisite therefore; on the other with the Celts and the germans are sul tially my own: here the production of human beings themselves, the propagation of Morgan had at his disposal almost exclusively secondhand sources the species. The social institutions under which men of a definite and, as far as German conditions were concerned-with the exception historical epoch and of a defini te country live are conditioned by of Tacitus-only the wretched liberal falsifications of Mr. Freeman both kinds of production: by the stage of development of labour, The economic arguments, sufficient for Morgans purpose but on the one hand, and of the family, on the other. The less the develo my own, have all been elaborated afresh ent of labour, and the more limited its volume of production 知 ly, I of course am responsible for all conclu therefore, the wealth of society, the more preponderatingly does is not expressly quoted. the social order appear to be within this structure of society based on ties of sex, the productivit of labour develops more and more; with it, private property and he fourth editi xchange, differences in wealth, the possibility of utilizing the Private P Translated from the German labour power of others, and thereby the basis of class antagonism new social elements, which strive in the course of generations to adapt the old structure of society to the new conditions, until, final- PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION The old society based on sex groups bursts asunder in the colli- on of the newly-developed social classes; in its place a new I89I ociety appears, constituted in a state, the lower units of which are no longer sex groups but territorial groups, a society in which the The previous large editions of this work have been out of prin family system entirely dominated by the property syste now for almost six months and the publisher has for some time past and in which the class antagonisms and class struggles, whi make up the content of all hitherto written history, now freely prevented me from doing so. Seven years have elapsed since the first devel edition appeared, and during this period our know ledge of the origi Morgan's great merit lies in having discovered and reconstructed this prehistoric foundation of our written history in its main feature necessary diligently to apply the hand to the work of amplification and in having found in the sex groups of the North American Indi- nd improvement, particularly in view of the fact that the proposed ins the key to the most important, hitherto. insoluble, riddles stereotyping of the present text will make further changes on my f the earliest Greek, Roman and German history. His book, how ever, was not the work of one day. He grappled with his mate- I have, therefore, submitted the whole text to a careful revision rial. for nearly forty years until he completely mastered it. That and have made a number of additions, in which, I hope, due regard is why his book is one of the few epoch-making works of our has been paid to the present state of science. Further, in the course In the following exposition the reader will, on the whole, of this preface, I give a brief review of the development of the history be able to distinguish between what has been taken from of the family from Bachofen to morgan, principally because the and what I have added myself. In the historical sections tinues to do its utmost to kill by silence the revolution Morgans Engels is here guilty of inexactitude by citing the propagation of the discoveries have made in conceptions of the history of primitive society, although it does not hesitate in the least to appropriate his results. Elsewhere, too, this English example is followed only too often roduction is the principal factor conditioning the development of s My work has been translated into variou into Italian: L'origine della famiglia, della proprietd
FREDERICK ENGELS ORIGIN OF FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY AND STATE 29 to, versione rioeduta dall'autore, di Pasquale Martignetti; Bene- ty lived in a state of sexual promiscuity, which the author unhappily vento 1885. Then Rumanian: Origina familei si a statului, traducere de foan Nadejde age, therefore, could be reckoned Contemporanul, September 1885 to May I886. Further into Danish only through the female line-according to mother right-and nally this was the case among all the peoples of anti- Forfatteren gennemgaaet Agave, get af Gerson Trier, Kobenhavn only definitely ascertainable parents of the younger generatin uity; 3) that consequently women, who, as mothers, were I888. A French translation by Henri Rave based on the preser German edition is in the press were treated according to Bachofen's conception, was enhanced to the complete where the woman belongs exclusively to one man, implied the viol), rule of women (gynecocracy); 4) that the transition to monga tion of a primeval religious injunction (that is, in actual fa Until the beginning of the sixties there was no such thing as a history of the family. In this sphere historical science was still same woman), a violation which had to be atoned for, or the completely under the influence of the Five Books of Moses. The toler violation of the ancient traditional right of the other men to the tion of which had to be purchased, by surrendering the woman for a patriarchal form of the family, described there in greater detail limited period of time. form of the family, but also--after excluding polygamy- identified less passages of ancient classical literature, which he had assembled vith the present-day bourgeois family, as if the family had really ith extraordinary diligence. According to him, the evolution ndergone no historical development at all. At most it was admit from“ hetaerism” to monogamy, and fror ted that a period of promiscuous sexual relationships might have existed in primeval time the evolution of religious ideas, the intrusion of new deities Oriental polygamy and Indo-Tibetan polyandry wer representatives of the new outlook, into the old traditional pantheon presenting the old outlook, so that the latter is more and more and appeared disconnectedly alongside of sache ste existing ay driven into the background by the former. Thus, according to Bacho- fen, it is not the development of the actual conditions under which ges, the line of descent was reckoned men live but the religious reflection of these cond rom the mother and, therefore, the female lineage alone was re- the minds of men that brought about the historical changes in the garded as valid; that among many peoples of today marriage within mutual social position of man and woman. Bachofen accordingly definite larger groups-not subjected to closer investigation at that points to the Oresteia of Aeschylus as a dramatic depiction of the time-is prohibited, and that this custom is to be met with in all struggle between declining mother right and rising and victorious arts father right in the Heroic Age. Clytemnestra has slain her hus- WEm计2m band Agamemnon, just returned from the Trojan War, for the sake f her lover Aegisthus; but Orestes, her son by Agamemnon, History of Mankind, etc. (I865), they figure merely as"strange verges his father's murder by slaying his mother. For this he is customs"along with the taboo in force among some savages against pursued by the Erinyes demonic defenders of mother right, the touching of burning wood with iron tools, and similar religious according to which matricide is the most heinous and of crimes. But Apollo, who through his oracle has incited Orestes The study of the history dates from 1861, from commit this deed, and Athena, who is called in as arbiter-the the publication of Bachofen's In this work the author wo deities which here represent the new order, based on father advances the following propositions: I in the beginning humani- right-protect him. Athena hears both sides. The whole contro- ersy is briefly summarized in the debate which now ensues be- into the Early History of mankind and the De- tween Orestes and the Erinyes. Orestes declares that Clytemnestra lopment London I865 is guilty of a double outrage; for in killing her husband she also
FREDERICK ENGELS ORIGIN OF FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY AND STATE 31 killed his father. Why then have the Erineyes ted him and social status than they have ever enjoyed since. Bach- not Clytemnestra, who is much the greater cul The reply is express these oing so; but he proved that they were correct, and this, in 186I, meant a complete revolu- "Unrelated by blood was she to the man that she slew The murder of a man not related by blood, even though he Bachofen's bulky tome was written in German, that is, in the be the husband of the murderess, is expiable and does not concern language of the nation which, at that time, interested itself less the Erinyes. Their function is to avenge only murders among blood any other in the prehistory of the present-day famil relatives, and the most heinous of all these, according to mother therefore, remained nown. His immediate successor in ow intervenes in defence of Orest appeared in 1865, without ever having heard of Bachofen, s field Athena calls upon the Areopagites-the Athenian jurors-tonare This successor was F. McLennan, the d ct the talented mystic, we have here. the n the questi equal. Then Athena, as President of the Court, casts her vote in dry-as-dust lawyer: instead of exuberant poetic fancy, we have favour of Orestes and acquits him. Father right has gained the day the plausible arguments of the advocate pleading his case. McLennan over mother right. The"gods of junior lineage, "as they are described finds among many savage, barbarian and even civilized peoples by the Erinyes themselves, are victorious over the Erinyes, and of ancient and modern times a form of marriage hich the bride- latter allow themselves finally to be persuaded to assume a new groom, alone or accompanied by friends, has to feign to carry of ce in the service of the new order. he bride from her relatives by force. This custom must be the sur- This new but absolutely correct interpretation of the Oresteia vival of a previous custom, whereby the men of one tribe acquired is one of the best and most beautiful passages in the whole book, their wives from outside, from other tribes, by actually abducting but it shows at the same time that Bachofen himself believes i them by force. How then did this"marriage by abduction"origi the Erinyes, Apollo and Athena at least as much as Aeschylus did ate? As long as men could find sufficient women in their own tribe in his day; he, in fact, believes that in the Heroic Age of Greece here was no occasion for it whatsoever. But quite as often we find they performed the miracle of overthrowing mother right and that among undeveloped peoples certain groups exist (which round placing it by father right. Clearly, such a conception-which regards about 186s were still often identified with the tribes themselves religion as the decisive lever in world history-must finally, end within which marriage is forbidden, so that the men are obliged in sheer mysticism. It is, therefore, an arduous and by no means to secure their wives, and the women their husbands from outside ways profitable task to wade through Bachofen' s bulky quarto ne group; while among others the custom prevails that the men volume. But all this does not detract from his merit as a pioneer of a certain group are compelled to find their wives only within for he was the first to substitute for mere phrases about an unknown their own group McLennan calls the first type of group exog primitive condition of promiscuous sexual intercourse proof that mous, and the second endogamous, and without further ado classical literature teems with traces of a condition that establishes a rigid antithesis between exogamous and endoga fact existed before monogamy among the Greeks and the mous"tribes "And although his own researches into exogamy bring in which not only a man had sexual intercourse with more nder his very nose the fact that in many, if not or even all an one woman, but a woman had sexual intercourse with more ases this antithesis exists only in his own imagination, he nev an one man, without violating the established custom; that this ertheless makes it the foundation of his entire theory. custom did not disappear without leaving traces in the form of the limited surrender by which women were compelled to purchase tribes; and in the state of permanent intertribal warfare that is their right to monogamian marriage; that descent, therefore could characteristic of savagery this, he believes, could be done only by iginally be reckoned only eduction mother; that this exclusive validity of the female line persisted far McLennan into the time of monogamy with assured, or at least recognized The conceptio paternity; and that this original position of the mother as the sold which devel nly much later certain parent of her children assured her, and thus women in gener- But the custom wides se are things w avages, of killing female chil-
FREDERICK ENGELS ORIGIN OF FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY AND STATE dren immediately after birth, might. This custom created a super the female kinship is also recognized and expressed auity of men in each individual tribe, the necessary and immediate male line. This is the restricted outlook of the jurist, who creates sequel of which was the common possession of a woman by a number a rigid legal term for himself and continues to apply it without of men-polyandry. The consequence of this again was that th modification to conditions which in the meantime have rendered it mother of a chil known but the father was not, hence applicable kinship was reckoned only in the female line to the exclusion of In spite of its plausibili the male-mother right. And another conseq ot seem to be too well-founded even to the author himself. At least of women within a tribe-a dearth mitigated but not overcome himself is struck by the fact that "it is observable that the olyandry-was precisely the systematic, forcible abduction form of [mock ]capture is now most distinctly marked and impressive romen of other tribes. "As exogamy and polyandry are referable one and the same cause-a want of balance between the descent through the male line]"(p. I40). And, again: "It is a cu rious fact that nowhere now that we are aware of, is infant- riginally been polyand Therefore we must hold it to be cide a system where and the earliest form of kinship among exogamous races bexist"(p. 146). Both these facts directly refute his interpretation kinship was that whic and he can oppose to only new, still more intricate hy- nly”( McLennan,Sda Ancient History, I886. Primitive Nevertheless, in England his theory met with great approbation McLennan's merit lies in having drawn attention to the gene al prevalence and great importance of what he terms exogamy. But founder of the history of the family, and the most eminent he by no means discovered the existence of exogamous groups, and in this field. His antithesis between still less did he understand it. Apart from the earlier, isolated notes amous" tribes, notwithstanding the few exceptions and modifica- of many observers which served as McLennans sources, Latham tions admitted remained nevertheless th cognized. foundation (Descriptive Ethnology, 1859) exactly and correctly described this of the prevailing view, and was the blinker which made any free institution among the Indian Magars and declared that it was gener survey of the field under investigation and, consequently, any definite ally prevalent and existed in all parts of the world-a passage which McLennan himself quotes. And our Morgan, too, as far back as I847 in his letters on the Iroquois (in the American Review) and in I85I in The League of the Iroquois proved that it existed in this tribe, 3berogue in England and, following the English fashion, else- as well, makes it a duty to point out in contrast that the arm he caused with his completely erroneous antithesis between and described it correctly, whereas, as we shall see, MCLennan's exogamous and endogamous"tribes"outweighs the good done by his lawyer's mentality caused far greater confusion on this subject than esearches Bachofen's mystical fantasy did in the sphere of mother right Meanwhile, more and more facts soon came to light, which It is also to McLennan's credit that he recognized the system of did not fit into his neat scheme. McLennan knew only three forms tracing descent al of marriage-polygamy, polyandry and amy. But once atten- he himself admitted later, Bachofen anticipated him in this, But tion had been directed to this point, more and more proofs were here again he is far from clear; he speaks continually of"k iscovered of the fact that amo eveloped peoples forms of through females only"and constantly applies this expression-cor- marriage existed in which a group of men possessed a group of wome rect for an earlier stage-also to later stages of development, where and Lubbock (in his The Origin of Civilization, I87o> although descent and inheritance are still exclusively reckoned in acknowledged this group marriage ("communal Immediately after, in I87I, Morgan appeared new and Studies in Ancient History, comprising a reprint of in many respects, conclusive material. He had Primi League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois. Rochester 1 J. Lubbock, The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man, menta 185I,一E of Savages, London 1870
FREDERICK ENGELS ORIGIN OF FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY AND STATE 85 that the peculiar system of kinship prevailing among the Iroquois Group marriage is a pure figment of the imagination, he assert thus spread over a whole continent, although it conflicted directh with the degrees of kinship actually arising from the connubial liteness, proved by the fact that the Indians also addressstran- system in force there. He thereupon prevailed on the Americar gers, white men if one ederal Government to collect information about the kinship sys- her, mother, brother sister tems of the other peoples, on the basis of questionnaires and tables are merely empty forms of addres priests drawn up by himself; and he discovered from the answers: I) that mother, and be- e american Indian system of kinship prevailed also among numer- ause monks and nuns, and even freer members of Eng lish craft unions in solemn session are addressed a and Australia; 2)that it was completely explained by a form of rother and sister. In short, Mclenr group marriage, now approaching extinction, in Hawaii and in other Australian Islands; and 3)that, however, alongside this marriage One point, however, remained on which he had not been cha D y be stem of kinship prevailed in these same islands which could ly be explained by a still earlier but now extinct form of group pon which his whole system rested, was not only unshaken, but rriage. He published the collected data and his conclusions from of the entire history of them in his Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity, I87I and there- the family. It was admitted that McLennans attempt to explain by carried the discussion on to an infinitely wider field. Taking this antithesis was inadequate and contradicted the very facts he the systems of kinship as his starting point, he reconstructed the himself had enumerated. But the antithesis itself, the existence forms of the family corresponding to them, and thereby opened of two mutually exclusive types of separate and independent tribes, new avenue of investigation and a more far-reaching retrospect into the prehistory of mankind. Were this method to be recognized absolutely forbidden to the this passed as valid. McLennan's neat construction would be resolved into gospel truth. Compare, fo Giraud-Teulon' s Origin of thin ai Family (I874) and even Lubbock's Origin of Civilization(Fourth McLennan defended his theory in a new edition of Primitive Edition. I882 Marriage(Studies in Ancient History, 1876). While he himself very This is the point at which morgans chief work enters: Ancient artI cially constructs a history of the family out of sheer hyi Society(1877), the book upon which the present work is based What Morgan only dimly surmised in I87I is here developed with one of their statements, but proofs of incontestable validity such as full comprehension. Endogamy and exogamy constitute no antithe- alone would be admitted in a Scottish court of law. And this is is; up to the present no exogamous tribes"have been brought to done by the man who, from the close relationship between ones light anywhere. But at the time when group marriage still prevailed and one's sister's son among the German obability it exi Tacitus, Germania, c. 20), from Caesar' s report that the Britons other-the tribe consisted of a number of groups related by blood in groups of ten or twelve possessed their wives in common, and on the mothers side, gentes, within which marriage was strictly from all the other reports of ancient writers concerning commu prohibited, so that although the men of a gens could, and as a rule mong the barbarians, unhesitatingly concludes did, take their wives from within their tribe, they had, however that poly 篇= s the rule among all these peoples! It is like lis- to take them from outside their gens. Thus, while the gens itself for the prosecution, who permits himself every vas strictly exogamous, the tribe, embracing all the gentes, was ng his own case, but demands the most formal as strictly endogamous. With this, the last remnants of McLennans valid proof for every word of counsel for the de- artificial structure definitely collapsed fence Morgan, however, did not rest content with this. The gens of the American Indians served him further as a means of making the Family as hinggan 8,t emed 1 A. Giraud-Teulon, Les origines de la famille, Geneve, Paris 1874.-Ed
FREDERICK ENGELS ORIGIN OF FAMILY. PRIVATE PROPERTY AND STATE 37 second decisive advance in the field of investigation material, in short for their ideas, upon two talented foreigners upon. He discovered that the gen achofen and Morgan? A German might be tolerated, but an Ameri can? Every Englishman waxes patriotic when faced with an ameri- organized according to father right, the gens as we find it among amusing examples of which I have come across while I was in the civilized peoples of antiquity. The Greek and Roman gens, an the United States. To this must be added that McLennan was, so nigma to all previous historians, was now explained by the Indian to speak, the officially proclaimed founder and leader of the English gens, and thus a new basis was found for the whole history of ric school; that it was, in a sense, good form among prehis primitive society to refer only with the greatest reverence to his artificially The rediscovery of the original mother-right gens as the stage ructed historical the preliminary to the father-right gens of the civilized peoples has by abduction, to the mother-right fami the same significance for the history of primitive society as dar win's theory of evolution has for biology, and Marx' s theory of exclusive exogamous and endogamous tribes"mutually wholly surplus value for political economy. It enabled Morgan to outline all these hallowed for the first time a history of the family, wherein at least the classi- guilty of a sacrilege. Moreover, al stages of development are, on the he resolved them in such a way that ly to state his ca for it to become obvious at once; and the McLennan worshippers opens a new era in the treatment of the history of primitive society. hitherto confusedly staggering about between exogamy and endog he mother-right gens has become the pivot around which this amy, were almost driven to beating their foreheads and exclaim- ng: How could we have been so stupid as not to have discovered tion to conduct our researches, what to investiga all this for ourselves long ago! classify the results of our investigations. As a consequence, pi And, as though this were not crime enough to prohibit the in this field is now much more rapid than before Morgans book but cold Morgans discoveries are now generally recognized, or rather appropriated, by prehistorians in England, too. But scarcely one cent of Fo rier, but also by speaking of a future transformation of society in this revolution in outlook. In England his book is hushed up as rds which Karl Marx might have used. He received his desert far as possible, and Morgan himself is dismissed with condescend- herefore when McLennan indignantly charged him with havinga rofound antipathy to the historical method, "and when Professor agerly picked on for criticism, while an obstinate silence reig Giraud-Teulon endorsed this view in Geneva as late as I884. Was with regard to his really great discoveries. The original edition of it not this same M. Giraud-Teulon, who, in I874 (Origines de Ancient Society is now out of print; in America there is no profitable la famille), was still wandering helplessly the maze of harket for books of this sort; in England, it would seem, the book McLennans exogamy, from which it took Morgan to liberate vas systematically suppressed, and the only edition of this ep making work still available in the book trade is-the German trans It is not necessary for me to deal here with the other advances which the history of primitive society owes to Morgan; a reference Whence this reserve which it is difficult not to regard as a con- to what is needed will be found in the course of this book. During spiracy of silence, particularly in view of the host of quotations the fourteen years that have elapsed since the publication of his given merely for politeness sake and of other evidences of camarade- chief work our material relating to the history of primitive human e, in which the writings of our recognized prehistorians abound? Morgan s an gists, travellers and professional prehistorians, students of compa for English ians, despite their highly commenda tive law have taken the field and have contributed new material and nce in the of material, to have to depend for th ew points of view. As a consequen viewpoint which determines the arrangement and grouping of this pertaining to particular points have been shaken, or ewen become
FREDERICK ENGELS 四:: where have th principal conceptions by other he introduced into the study of the history of rimitive society holds good to this day. We can even say that it s finding increasingly general acceptance in the same measure as his authorship of this great advance is being concealed. 1 THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY London, June I6, I891 Frederick Engels PRIVATE PROPERTY AND THE STATE Translated from the German Primitive Family PREHISTORIC STAGES OF CULTURE to organ was the first person with expert knowledge troduce a definite order into the prehistory of man portant additional material necessitates alterations, his cla ay be Of the three main epochs, savagery, barbarism and civilization he is naturally concerned only with the first two, and with the tran- chs into a lower, middle and upper stage, according to the progress made in the production of the means of subsistence; for, as he says: "Upon their skill in this direction, the whole question of human supremacy on the earth depended. Mankind are the only beings who may be said to have gained an absolute control over the production of food The great epochs of human progress have been identified, more of less directly, with the enlargement of the sources of subsistence. The evolution of the family proceeds concurrently, but does not offer such conclusive criteria for the delimination of the periods I. SAVAGERY I. Lower Stage. Infancy of the human race. Man still lived in his original habitat, tropical or subtropical forests, dwelling, at 1 On my return voyage from N least partially, in trees; this alone explains ntinued survival ld tell me little a bout hir in face of the large beasts of prey. Fruits, nuts and roots served him s food; the formation of articulate speech was the main achieve- ment of this period. None of the peoples that became known during Through the good offices of this brother, he had succeeded in interesting the the historical period were any longer in this primeval state. Although this period may have lasted for many thousands of years, we have n Congtess. [Note by Engels. 1 no direct evidence of its existence; but once dmit the descent