Historical Journal, Vol. 4 No. 1-4, 1951.
Original scientific paper
Summary
Oleg Mandić
Abstract
In his preface "On the Origin of Family, Private Property and State" Engels has laid stress upon the fact that in the epoch of primitive community one sole moment was of fundamental importance for the evolution of society: the production and reproduction of life. The production and reproduction of life is to be found in the process of production and distribution of goods that are necessary to satisfy man's needs, and in the family relations which condition the continuation of progeny. These two elements constitute the essential characteristic for the social development in that primitive epoch.
Soviet writers are in favour of Stalin's view, that Engels made a mistake, in trying to advance such a view, in that he gave the same importance to family relations, i. e. to the family, as to the production of material goods. The Institute Marx-Engels-Lenin attached to the Central Commitee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of the U. S. S. R., whose criticism is upheld by Mitin, stresses that the condition, which determines social structure as a whole regardless of epoch, is the manner of production of material goods, that are necessary for life existence and the continuation of progeny. The criticism of the Institute considers the danger, that this passage by Engels might be taken absolutely, i. e. that the influence of the family might be taken as equal to the manner of production, and that this might be established as a rule for the evolution of society as a whole. Acting thus, the Institute Marx-Engels-Lenin puts aside the question about the role of the family in primitive community. Such critics of Engels, as Leontiev and Ostrovitianov, in treating the epoch of primitive community, assert, that Engels in advancing his view on the family has made a mistake in the interpretation of the essence, activity and reciprocal influence of the conditions, that determined its development.
The aforesaid Soviet writers follow Stalin's opinion in a servile manner, commenting and paraphrasing his views and accordingly do not find it necessary to study facts concerning the life of primitive peoples. Those facts would convince them of the truth, that Engels did not think of formulating a general law of development, that would apply to all social forms that have existed and that still exist in the world, but that his passage refers only to that primitive epoch. An analysis of ethnographical data, especially those collected in the twentieth century, infallibly proves that fact. Besides, Engels does not attribute to the family the notion it has to-day, because he limits it to conjugal relations in primitive community.
The problem of family as a definite social phenomenon begins with the question of whether it has always existed in the human society. If we analyse the social forms of primitive community, we come to the conclusion, that there was a stage of development, when there was no family as a social institution with definite contents. The fundamental elements that constitute the contents of a family are: conjugal relations between husband and wife, economic co-operation in the organizing of the production and consumption of goods, the care and upbringing of children.
This is only the scheme of the family's contents. Forms and intensity of the single elements of those contents change from one social organisation to another. In its historical evolution the family did not always have the same contents. Concrete relational forms between men and women were different and such they are now, depending on the evolutional degree of the manner of production and on the remaining material conditions of their life. The Sakai and Minangkabau husbands and wives on Sumatra have only occasional conjugal relations. They live and work separated, in their clans, that produce all things necessary for life existence and also for the upbringing of children. The natives of Owa-Raha (Solomon Islands) are acquainted with the conjugal relation of husband and wife, which also have economic contents. These comprise not only the consumption, but also the production of goods, while the economic affairs of wider scope belong to the competence of the clans, who perform them through the collective work of the majority of their members. The children also become the aim of the conjugal relations. The view on children as a factor that improves the economic capacity of great family groups, is to be found even to this day in big polygynous families of West Africa. The monogamous family of civilized man is the result of private ownership of the means of production. It does not produce indirectly the goods necessary for the existence of its members, as was the case with family groups that preceded it, but it has a definite economic foundation for its maintenance. The family in socialistic society is a community of life between man and woman, whose duty it is to be faithful to one another, to help each other, to run in mutual agreement a common household and common property they have acquired by work as long as their matrimony lasts.
Between these characteristic cases, which correspond to the different stages of social evolution, there are a great number of others. They evidently indicate that conjugal relations have developed from lower to higher forms, and that there was a stage of evolution, when there was not a family as a compound of physiological, economical and biological elements. In that epoch those elements did exist, but were separated one from another, because they existed in different combinations of contents, creating different social forms. But with the dissolution of these primary contents into their component elements some of them, such as the consumption and production of some goods and the care of children can first pass into the competence of individuals and, later, in the form of economic and educational co-operation of consorts they can combine through conjugal relations into a new quality - family.
Therefore what is to be studied in the field of social forms in its relation between man and woman is its contents, which differ with the stage of development of the relative social-economical unit. It is important to make sure what develops in the contents, what changes within them, and which elements cause and condition those changes, so that more perfect forms of relations between man and woman come into existence. Those elements are first - the most ancient ones - physiological in the form of conjugal relations. The second of them is the economical - first common consumption of goods by husband and wife, then common production of goods, which comprises as large a number of affairs as possible, as the powers of production develop the more. Finally one of the elements is a biological one as well as the care of children and their upbringing in the function of continuation of progeny. The linking up of each of these elements with the former ones, represents a new, higher stage of relationship between man and woman, in comparison with those, that preceded them.
In primitive community the system of classificatory relationship is preponderant. According to this system individuals are not related to one another through family relations, but there are groups of people of the same age in kinship relation with separate groups of older or younger people of the same age. The classificatory system determines who belongs to the community, who has to work for it, who is to get from it all that one needs to make a living and to defend oneself. Who does not belong to the clan by birth or by way of adoption through members of the clan cannot take part in the process of production, i. e. he cannot be the subject of production relations.
In clan institutions one can talk of mutual influence of economic life and conjugal relations and vice versa only when the consorts begin to lead a common life, i. e. when one of them has to move into the clan of the other. Before this stage of development, in the beginning of the matriarchy, only occasional relations between man and woman are known, who otherwise take part in production relations of their own clans. The group matrimony which is characteristic of this stage of social development comprises only conjugal relations between men and women. Such is the case with the Ghiliaks on the Sakhaline island, the Chukchees in Siberia, the Himas in East Africa, the Todas in India, the Marind-anims on New Guinea. The mother is entrusted with the upbringing of all children, while they are still infants, and the older men or women respectively, according to sex, in the age, which precedes the ceremony of initiation. The powers of production are not as yet developed so as to allow individuals to perform economical functions of their own and so to satisfy some of their needs.
In the following stage of development, as is the case for example with the social Institution on the islands of Owa-Raha and Owa-Riki (Solomon islands) the conjugal communities in the form of couples of consorts with their children already practice economical functions. The natives of those islands live in exogam, totemistic, matriarchal clans who are owners of land and hunting grounds. Men clear the forest, cultivate the soil, plant trees, engage in hunting and fishing, build canoes and sacred houses, and perform religious rites. Women manage the household, plant and cultivate smaller plants, gather wild fruit and tubers, shells and crabs. Husband and wife build in common the house, in which they are going to live, gather in the crops from the fields, prepare their food, and bring up their children until the time of initiation comes. For all activities without exception, which surpass the powers of the consorts, help is required and is received from the other members of the clan.
The historical value of this marriage form lies in the fact that it begins to link up the physiological with economical and biological social functions. The relations of matriarchal clans with men that belong to them become lax, because they marry outside and take part in the process of production of their women’s clans. Between the married couples the relationship becomes stronger, because between them there grows a kind of co-operation in the fulfilment of definite economical functions. Such is the case with the natives of Sumatra, along the coast of Malabar in India, in Melanesia and Micronesia and with the Indian tribes of North and South America.
In the further development of society the economical importance of man's labour increases. Organised forms of hunting, fishing, agriculture and cattle-breeding appear. In social organisms, whose main occupation is agriculture, woman, in working with man, retains her economical role and equality of her social standing. The situation is different in these social forms, the economy of which is based upon cattle-raising, hunting or fishing as the main manner of production. The labour of men, who occupy themselves in providing for all members of society is more important than the labour of women, whose activity is the more and more reduced only to the consumption: storing food, cooking, making of clothes and articles for the household. The production is concentrated in the hands of men, especially at the time, when there is a surplus of production, and in connexion with it trade, which becomes exclusively their occupation.
Now the clans try to keep that labour force, which is worth more. It is the force of the men. Accordingly, there arises a tendency, that the women move into the clans of their husbands, i. e. marriages become patrilocal. Here are the seeds of patriarchy. With the going over of a woman from her clan into her husband's, her clan loses a man-power with all the potential man-power it contains in its bosom - the future children. Therefore the wife's clan requires a compensation for such economical loss. Such forms of compensation are the exchange of women who are to be married, between clans, working, when the future husband works for his future wife's clan during a longer or shorter period of time, purchasing, when the compensation to the clan for the marriage of a girl consists in a given quantity of natural products or number of objects which are established by custom.
As a complement to marriage by compensation is rape, by means of which the man's clan tries to evade this economical compensation.
At this stage the men take over the control of the upbringing of the children. In this manner beside the physiological component - the link between husband and wife and the economical one, in the marriage of couples the biological upbringing of the younger generation - begins to stabilize, which ensures the biological continuity of the species. But those three components taken together are not as yet the family in that sense, because the manner of production has not developed to such an extent, as to permit husband and wife to become economically independent, acquiring all they need for life existence.
In the course of the further evolution changes take place in the clans. As a smaller number of man-power is required for performing collective affairs, the clans split into smaller collectives. The membership of such communities is also determined by descent. But no more according to classificatory systems, but to blood-relationship, which is reflected in terms of descriptive schemes. Such communities are the Southern-slav zadrugas, similar forms in Spain (Aragon) and West Africa, the roman patriarchal family, the Russian one, and similar family forms in the Caucasus, in India and South Africa, the polyginous family in Africa and Oceania and the matriarchal one of the Pueblo Indians.
When such communities dissolve, individual families come into existence. In the Roman patriarchal family this transition happens with the death of the pater familias and the division of heritage among his sons who so become sui iuris, having freed themselves from the paternal authority. It is the same case with the polyginous family.
Therefore in primitive society previous to the dissolution of such relationship communities there is no family as a social institution, which would contain definite physiological, economic and educational functions performed by husband and wife. Owing to this dissolution, conjugal communities acquire an economical basis, which enables them to live an entirely independent life. Thus they contain all three components, the physiological, the economical and the biological and in this manner they turn into individual families of the monogamous type.
If the family was formed only in the transition period from the barbarian into the stage of civilisation, then it evidently could not influence the life in primitive community. The relationship ties, that existed there, were important for the life of single members of the community and therefore were the foundation of the structure of primitive society as they were reflected in its production relations. Soviet writers did not pay attention to concrete facts, drawn from the life of primitive communities and therefore, their criticism against Engels lacks a foundation.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
327527
URI
Publication date:
1.6.1951.
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