Marxism and the family

Question 1

Engels

Answer 1

Engels linked the idea of monogamy with the idea of private property. Monogamy ensured that any children born were the legitimate heirs of the father as historically property was held by males and passed down to male heirs.In the earliest societies, Engels argues that women held power but as humans learned to herd animals, men took control of livestock and so became the first property owners. The result of this was to make women possessions of their husbands, another form of private property. With the rise of monogamy, women’s roles were to simply provide their husbands with heirs and raise those children to adulthood.

Question 2

Zaretsky

Answer 2

Work under capitalism became an alienating experience meaning that workers had little control over their lives and so were unable to achieve real satisfaction from it. Family life came to be seen as a refuge where workers had control over their lives. However this is only an illusion as the family will be unable to overcome effects of capitalism until it is abolished in which then the family can be organised around the needs of the members rather than the needs of the economic system. Zaretsky argues that the family supports the capitalist system in two ways. Firstly women reproduce and bring up children in which the capitalist employers benefit from this unpaid domestic work as the next generation of workers are reared at no expense to them. Secondly the family acts as a unit of consumption, buying the products of capitalism and allowing capitalists to continue making profit.

Question 3

Criticisms/Evaluation

Answer 3

• Marxism tend to suggest that family life and individuals life’s are largely shaped and determined by economic forces such as the needs of capitalism. This ignores the capacity to make choices about our lives.
• Marxism can be seen as outdated as it only focuses on the nuclear family rather than its alternatives. Marxists have little to say about the diverse range of families
• Marxism highlight class inequalities but fail to fully consider the importance of other kinds of social divisions such as gender.
• Marxism mainly focuses on life in Western capitalist societies and has little to say about the nature of families in other parts of the world.