the ethnological notebooks of karl marx - Marxists Internet Archive

wüchsige Theilung der Arbeit aus den Geschlechts- und Altersverschiedenheiten__” (“ Within a family, and after further developmentwithin a tribe, there springs up a natural division of labour, out of thedifferences of age and sex__ ” ) Engels added the footnote to this, “ Späteresehr gründliche Studien der menschlichen Urzustände führten den Verfasser[des Kapital] zum Ergebniss, dass ursprünglich nicht die Familiesich zum Stamm ausbildet, sondern umgekehrt, der Stamm die ursprünglichenaturwüchsige Form der auf Blutsverwandtschaft beruhendenmenschlichen Vergesellschaftung war, sodass aus der beginnendenAuflösung der Stammesbande erst später die vielfach verschiednenFormen der Familie sich entwickelten.” (“ Subsequent very searchingstudies of the primitive condition of man led the author [of Capital] to theconclusion, that it was not the family that originally developed into thetribe, but that, on the contrary, the tribe was the primitive and spontaneouslydeveloped form of human association, on the basis of blood relationship,and that out of the first incipient loosening of the tribal bonds,the many and various forms of the family were afterwards developed.”)142The later studies by Marx which Engels referred to were those whichrelated to Morgan. Engels formulated the problem of his book on theOrigin of the Family at the end of 1883, foreshadowed both by the footnotein Capital of November 1883, and his vain search for a copy of AncientSociety at the beginning of January 1884.143 He prepared a synopsis ofhis own work, which at first bore the title Entstehung (Development orFormation) der Familie, etc., on the basis of Marx’s notes, read both fromthese and from his synopsis to Bernstein who visited him at the end ofFebruary-beginning of March 1884. Engels acquired his own copy ofMorgan’s work later in March,144 and finished the first eight chapters ofthe Origin of the Family two months later, reserving the last chapter forrevisions145 (which were never carried through: these are in connectionwith the critique of civilization by Fourier).146 He considered that Marxhimself wanted to introduce the work of Morgan to the Germans, andpublished the book in ‘execution of a bequest’, thus interpreting thedesign of Marx’s notebooks.147As the opening phrase of his Origin of the Family, Engels stated,“Morgan is the first who, with factual knowledge, sought to bring adefinite order to the early history of mankind; so long as no significantlyexpanded material calls for changes, his classification will remain inforce.” 148Engels established his own relation to the work of Morgan on the oneside and to that of Marx on the other. The following two tables will listthe more important points of contact between Engels’ work with that ofMorgan, on the one hand, and with that of Marx, in this reference, onthe other.77