Friedrich Engels argues that "the first condition for the liberation of the wife is to bring the whole female sex back to public industry" (Engels [FF], 1993: 170). He maintains that the class oppression of the female sex by the male is rooted in monogamous marriage. Engels rests his argument on Western's society's insistence on the monogamous family as its most elementary economic unit, which he argues has resulted in the oppression of women.
Basically, Engels sees the monogamous family as rooted in the supremacy of the man for the express purpose of producing children of undisputed paternity who can inherit the father's property (Engels, 1993: 167). He argues that society's definition of the monogamous family has given the man the right of conjugal fidelity from the wife without a reciprocal obligation on his part. Thus, although the law states that both parties enter into marriage freely and as equal partners, in fact, society gives the man greater rights because of his economic superiority (Engels, 1993: 169). Inside the family, she is to her husband as the proletariat is to the bourgeois outside the family (Engels, 1993: 169).
Engels argues that, on the other hand, the old communistic household entrusted women with the public, socially necessary task of managing the household. But today, the single monogamous family has become a private society in which the wife performs a private service. This private service excludes the woman from public production and a consequent role in economic society (Engels, 1993: 169).
Simi Afonja's analysis of the socio-economic history of the Yoruba of Southwest Nigeria supports Engels's theoretical relation of family life to economic life in Western capitalistic culture. However, Afonja's analysis also reveals a gap in Engels' theory that Heidi Hartmann attempts to address. Generally, Afonja maintains that until the 19th century, the Yoruba were self-subsisting agricultural producers, whic...