The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

What evidence does Engels present for his claim that matriarchy is a more peaceful and natural system than patriarchy? How does this claim challenge social structures beyond the family?

How, in Engels’s telling, were men ultimately able to usurp the main honors of the family from women, if matriarchy is a system more in line with the essential facts of human nature?

Why, according to Engels, did humanity evolve out of group marriage? What are the differences between the intermediary family units, and how did they each preserve the principles of consanguinity with the realities of an evolving social structure?

Engels’s description of the Iroquois people is highly reminiscent of the ‘noble savage’ trope popular throughout European and American culture. What does this trope suggest about European and American attitudes toward modernity?

Compare and contrast the way that the Greeks and Romans moved from a gentile constitution to a system of private property. What were the key institutions they developed along the way that ultimately caused the transition, and in doing so laid the groundwork for their eventual ruin?

How did the Germans, in conquering the Roman Empire, ultimately fall victim to Roman ways and thereby perpetuate the system of private property into the Middle Ages and beyond?

The word “barbarian” has carried pejorative connotations since ancient times, with the Romans using it to denigrate the people they conquered as less civilized and virtuous than themselves. How does Engels seek to subvert the hierarchy this word implies? Does he succeed?

Engels argues that civilization has on the whole been to humanity’s detriment. How does he support this claim, and how does it align with Marxist arguments about the distribution of power?