The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State

How the emergence of class-divided society gave rise to repressive state bodies and family structures that protect the property of the ruling layers and enable them to preserve wealth and privilege.

Engels discusses the consequences for working people, male and female, of these class institutions—from their original forms to their modern versions.

Also available in Spanish (ISBN: 9786077365662), Farsi (ISBN: 9789645783479), Indonesian (ISBN: 9789791725149)

Frederick Engles (1820–1895) was the founding leader, along with Karl Marx, of the modern revolutionary workers movement. Together with Marx he drafted the Communist Manifesto, the program of that movement. A founder of the Communist League (1848–52), Engels played a prominent role in the 1848–49 revolution in Germany. He was, with Marx, a founding leader of the General Council of the International Working Men’s Association (1864–76), often called the First International. After the death of Marx in 1883, Engels led the revolutionary wing of the Second International, founded in 1880, until his own death in 1895.

Writings by Engels published and distributed by Pathfinder include:
Labor, Nature, and the Dawn of History (coauthor, 2021)
Communist Manifesto (coauthor, 2008)
Collected Works of Marx and Engels (1975–2004)
“The Peasant Question in France and Germany” in Marxism and the Working Farmer (1979)
Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1972)
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1972)

Evelyn Reed (1905–1979) joined the communist movement in 1940 and remained a leading member of the Socialist Workers Party until her death. An active participant in the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s, she was a founding member of the Women’s National Abortion Action Coalition and spoke on women’s rights in cities around the world. She is the author of many works on the origins of the oppression of women and the fight for their emancipation. These include Woman’s Evolution (1975), which has been translated into six languages. Other works include:

Cosmetics, Fashions, and the Exploitation of Women (1986, coauthor)
Is Biology Woman’s Destiny? (1985)
Sexism and Science (1978)
Problems of Women’s Liberation (1969)