p A family is an historical category. It changed and developed as the mode of production and social relations changed and developed. In the primitive herd, which preceded the tribal system, relations between sexes were of a haphazard nature and consequently no family existed. As a social phenomenon the family appeared in the primitive society. At first, at the matriarchate stage it had a group character when all the women of a gens were the possible 278 wives of all the men of another gens. Children did not know their fathers. They belonged to the maternal family consisting of a group of the mother’s nearest relatives. Gradually a paired family appeared within the group marriage. At first it was a chance, temporary cohabitation of individual pairs, and then it developed into a more or less lasting one. The fragile paired family which had no household of its own was replaced by a more durable monogamic family which arose following the transition from the matriarchate to the patriarchate. The husband and father became the head of the family, and his wife and children lived with him under one roof. The family acquired property which the children inherited from the father together with his name.

p With the rise of the class antagonistic society the development of the family became closely connected with the development of private ownership and relations of exploitation. At first it was a slave-owning family; then it was succeeded by a feudal and capitalist family depending on changing socio-economic systems.

p In the slave-owning and feudal societies a slave or a peasant could have a family only with the consent of, or at the discretion of, his master”. As regards slaves they were often enough forbidden to have families. Under feudalism relations in a family acquired a clearly expressed class nature: marriages between people belonging to different estates were not permitted. A typical feature of a slave-owning or feudal family was the unlimited authority of its head over his wife, children and property, and the debased and oppressed status of the woman.

p The rule of the family head and the unequal status of the woman are preserved in the capitalist family in spite of the proclaimed freedom of marriage-family relations. The role played by material considerations was never greater than it is in a bourgeois family whose main aim and purpose is accumulation of wealth and its inheritance by descendants.

Another family which exists in capitalist society is that of a working man. Here marital relations usually rest on love, respect and cooperation of husband and wife. But this family, too, experiences the demoralising influence of capital. Capitalism deprives many low-paid workers, not to mention the unemployed, of a chance of marrying. A 279 woman under capitalism carries a double burden: she is forced to work for the capitalist and usually for a lower wage than a man, and also to do the lion’s share of the work involved in housekeeping and bringing up children. The woman’s unequal status is determined by law and consecrated by bourgeois morality and religion.