[Sphinx]

I was reading the Communist Manifesto when I came across this:

But you Communists would introduce community of women, screams the bourgeoisie in chorus.

The bourgeois sees his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women.

He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production.

For the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation of our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to be openly and officially established by the Communists. The Communists have no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial.

Our bourgeois, not content with having wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other’s wives.

Bourgeois marriage is, in reality, a system of wives in common and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalised community of women. For the rest, it is self-evident that the abolition of the present system of production must bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing from that system, i.e., of prostitution both public and private.

This is quite vague. OK, Communism will abolish prostitution, but is the hypothetical "Community of Women" part of the communist plan for the world or not? If yes, how is it supposed to work? And if no, what is the alternative?

[Saeko]

The Communists have no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial.

Heh. Another communist pipe dream.

[Potemkin]

What Marx and Engels refer to as the "community of women" is, in fact, prostitution, adultery and the like. And they note that it has, in practice, existed since time immemorial. And they condemn it as a sordid and hypocritical practice. And note that they are not saying that the Communists will legalise this "community of women"; they are merely stating that this would be the only sensible accusation the bourgeois 'thinkers' could level at them, and even this accusation would be untrue. Instead, women in a Communist society would no longer be exploited as instruments of production, to be used as sexual toys by men, to produce male heirs for property owners, and the like. The concept of the "community of women" would therefore be meaningless in a Communist society.

The meaning of the text is quite plain. I don't understand why you seem to be confused by it.

[Sphinx]

So there will be marriage in a communist society, or not?

[Decky]

Depends what you mean. If two (or more) people want to have a big party and celebrate their love and call themselves married after that then good for them. If you mean something recognised by the state then no. The state does not authorise friendships, you do not need a certificate when you move from someone's acquaintance to their friend why should marriage be any different?

[Potemkin]

Men and women will presumably still form pair-bonds in a Communist society, yes. You can even call it "marriage", if you wish. It will not, however, be a property contract, as it is at present.

[Sphinx]

OK. How about the fruits of the marriage? Will the parents raise their children, or will there be a communal alternative?

The manifesto touches this issue very briefly:

Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.

[Potemkin]

OK. How about the fruits of the marriage? Will the parents raise their children, or will there be a communal alternative?

That, presumably, would be entirely up to the parents. There would be no state coercion in a Communist society, remember? If the parents were unable or unwilling to look after their children themselves, then the rest of the community would presumably do so.

[ComradeTim]

Will there be unicorns under communism?

[Potemkin]

Will there be unicorns under communism?

Of course, ComradeTim. And free beer for everyone!

[Saeko]

What Marx and Engels refer to as the "community of women" is, in fact, prostitution, adultery and the like. And they note that it has, in practice, existed since time immemorial. And they condemn it as a sordid and hypocritical practice. And note that they are not saying that the Communists will legalise this "community of women"; they are merely stating that this would be the only sensible accusation the bourgeois 'thinkers' could level at them, and even this accusation would be untrue. Instead, women in a Communist society would no longer be exploited as instruments of production, to be used as sexual toys by men, to produce male heirs for property owners, and the like. The concept of the "community of women" would therefore be meaningless in a Communist society.

The meaning of the text is quite plain. I don't understand why you seem to be confused by it.

Well, what everybody else refers to as the "community of women" is the practice of having wives in common, and it has nothing to do with prostitution, adultery, or the like. I don't think it is merely a moralizing charge (of supporting prostitution and adultery) against communism. It is an interesting question.

While prostitution, adultery, and the like have existed since time immemorial, the practice of holding wives in common seems to be very rare. But it is sensible to ask, given the context of Marxist economic determinism and abolition of private property, whether that abolition would apply to the sexual realm also.

[Potemkin]

Well, what everybody else refers to as the "community of women" is the practice of having wives in common, and it has nothing to do with prostitution, adultery, or the like. I don't think it is merely a moralizing charge (of supporting prostitution and adultery) against communism. It is an interesting question.

If all wives are held in common, then they can hardly be called "wives", now can they? You seem to be referring to the concept of "free love", which is somewhat different. This would effectively involve the dissolution of pair-bonding between individual men and women. There is nothing in Communist theory or ideology which would suggest that such a dissolution of pair-bonding would be either necessary or desirable. In fact, the experience of the USSR and of Communist China rather suggests the reverse.

While prostitution, adultery, and the like have existed since time immemorial, the practice of holding wives in common seems to be very rare. But it is sensible to ask, given the context of Marxist economic determinism and abolition of private property, whether that abolition would apply to the sexual realm also.

Only if you regard women as private property, Saeko, which is exactly how the bourgeoisie of the 19th century did indeed view them. The point that Marx and Engels are making is that the concept of the "community of women" presupposes that women are instruments of production, to be exploited by the bourgeois male. Communism would abolish such a view of women, rendering the whole concept of the "community of women" meaningless. You may as well ask if Communism would introduce a "community of men".

[Saeko]

If all wives are held in common, then they can hardly be called "wives", now can they? You seem to be referring to the concept of "free love", which is somewhat different. This would effectively involve the dissolution of pair-bonding between individual men and women. There is nothing in Communist theory or ideology which would suggest that such a dissolution of pair-bonding would be either necessary or desirable. In fact, the experience of the USSR and of Communist China rather suggests the reverse.

They most certainly can still be called "wives". There is more to marriage than just sex, which is why the practice of having wives in common is not the same thing as "free love". Marriage also implies various economic and social obligations, which, under the practice of having wives in common (is there a name for this?) those obligations would be extended to the entire group rather than limited to a pair of idividuals (as under traditional forms of marriage) or eliminated entirely (except for pair-boding, which is what seems to be the communist position).

My point here is that there is a substantial question here, and Marx missed the point if he thought the people asking it were referring to prostitution and adultery.

Only if you regard women as private property, Saeko, which is exactly how the bourgeoisie of the 19th century did indeed view them. The point that Marx and Engels are making is that the concept of the "community of women" presupposes that women are instruments of production, to be exploited by the bourgeois male.

The concept presupposes no such thing. Marx and Engels, are, as I've said before, completely missing the point.

EDIT: I should add that just as there is more than one way to abolish private property, there is also more than one way to abolish marriage. What sort of system replaces private property and traditional marriage is not a trivial question, but Marx and Engels already have an answer in mind which they incorrectly believe to be the only one possible (or if theirs is the only one possible, then they're not aware that other people don't know that).

[The Immortal Goon]

The exact implementation of this has divided socialists from the beginning.

The nuts and bolts we all agree with: the material reality, and how we interact with our world, dictate how we interact with our relations—and the family.

Marx and Engels call for the abolition of the family. That is to say, the family as it is currently understood, which started on its trajectory with the creation of private property—the conception of owning these things as a personal right:

Here the domestication of animals and the breeding of herds had developed a hitherto unsuspected source of wealth and created entirely new social relations. Up to the lower stage of barbarism, permanent wealth had consisted almost solely of house, clothing, crude ornaments and the tools for obtaining and preparing food – boat, weapons, and domestic utensils of the simplest kind. Food had to be won afresh day by day. Now, with their herds of horses, camels, asses, cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs, the advancing pastoral peoples – the Semites on the Euphrates and the Tigris, and the Aryans in the Indian country of the Five Streams (Punjab), in the Ganges region, and in the steppes then much more abundantly watered of the Oxus and the Jaxartes – had acquired property which only needed supervision and the rudest care to reproduce itself in steadily increasing quantities and to supply the most abundant food in the form of milk and meat. All former means of procuring food now receded into the background; hunting, formerly a necessity, now became a luxury.

But to whom did this new wealth belong? Originally to the gens, without a doubt. Private property in herds must have already started at an early period, however. It is difficult to say whether the author of the so-called first book of Moses regarded the patriarch Abraham as the owner of his herds in his own right as head of a family community or by right of his position as actual hereditary head of a gens. What is certain is that we must not think of him as a property owner in the modern sense of the word. And it is also certain that at the threshold of authentic history we already find the herds everywhere separately owned by heads of families, as are the artistic products of barbarism – metal implements, luxury articles and, finally, the human cattle – the slaves.

For now slavery had also been invented. To the barbarian of the lower stage, a slave was valueless. Hence the treatment of defeated enemies by the American Indians was quite different from that at a higher stage. The men were killed or adopted as brothers into the tribe of the victors; the women were taken as wives or otherwise adopted with their surviving children. At this stage human labor-power still does not produce any considerable surplus over and above its maintenance costs. That was no longer the case after the introduction of cattle-breeding, metalworking, weaving and, lastly, agriculture. just as the wives whom it had formerly been so easy to obtain had now acquired an exchange value and were bought, so also with the forces of labor, particularly since the herds had definitely become family possessions. The family did not multiply so rapidly as the cattle. More people were needed to look after them; for this purpose use could be made of the enemies captured in war, who could also be bred just as easily as the cattle themselves.

Once it had passed into the private possession of families and there rapidly begun to augment, this wealth dealt a severe blow to the society founded on pairing marriage and the matriarchal gens. Pairing marriage had brought a new element into the family. By the side of the natural mother of the child it placed its natural and attested father, with a better warrant of paternity, probably, than that of many a “father” today. According to the division of labor within the family at that time, it was the man’s part to obtain food and the instruments of labor necessary for the purpose. He therefore also owned the instruments of labor, and in the event of husband and wife separating, he took them with him, just as she retained her household goods. Therefore, according to the social custom of the time, the man was also the owner of the new source of subsistence, the cattle, and later of the new instruments of labor, the slaves. But according to the custom of the same society, his children could not inherit from him. For as regards inheritance, the position was as follows:

At first, according to mother-right – so long, therefore, as descent was reckoned only in the female line – and according to the original custom of inheritance within the gens, the gentile relatives inherited from a deceased fellow member of their gens. His property had to remain within the gens. His effects being insignificant, they probably always passed in practice to his nearest gentile relations – that is, to his blood relations on the mother's side. The children of the dead man, however, did not belong to his gens, but to that of their mother; it was from her that they inherited, at first conjointly with her other blood relations, later perhaps with rights of priority; they could not inherit from their father, because they did not belong to his gens, within which his property had to remain. When the owner of the herds died, therefore, his herds would go first to his brothers and sisters and to his sister’s children, or to the issue of his mother’s sisters. But his own children were disinherited.

Thus, on the one hand, in proportion as wealth increased, it made the man’s position in the family more important than the woman’s, and on the other hand created an impulse to exploit this strengthened position in order to overthrow, in favor of his children, the traditional order of inheritance. This, however, was impossible so long as descent was reckoned according to mother-right. Mother-right, therefore, had to be overthrown, and overthrown it was. This was by no means so difficult as it looks to us today. For this revolution – one of the most decisive ever experienced by humanity – could take place without disturbing a single one of the living members of a gens.

...The overthrow of mother-right was the world historical defeat of the female sex. The man took command in the home also; the woman was degraded and reduced to servitude, she became the slave of his lust and a mere instrument for the production of children. This degraded position of the woman, especially conspicuous among the Greeks of the heroic and still more of the classical age, has gradually been palliated and glozed over, and sometimes clothed in a milder form; in no sense has it been abolished.

The solution, then, is to abolish the property in order to get back to a state before it changed our perception of the world:

What will be the influence of communist society on the family?

It will transform the relations between the sexes into a purely private matter which concerns only the persons involved and into which society has no occasion to intervene. It can do this since it does away with private property and educates children on a communal basis, and in this way removes the two bases of traditional marriage – the dependence rooted in private property, of the women on the man, and of the children on the parents.

And here is the answer to the outcry of the highly moral philistines against the “community of women”. Community of women is a condition which belongs entirely to bourgeois society and which today finds its complete expression in prostitution. But prostitution is based on private property and falls with it. Thus, communist society, instead of introducing community of women, in fact abolishes it.

The bridging of this gap, of what to do after there is some control by the proletariat in the disarming of private property is what is often left to discussion.

It is basically a question of whether the removal of private property (the base) will affect the culture (superstructure); or whether changing the culture (superstructure) will help move the base (capitalism, private property).

Of the debates that look at this, the Connolly-DeLeon controversy is amongst the first. It is worth reading. Connolly takes the stance that the base must change to replace the superstructure. I incidentally agree with him.

Lenin, in taking control of the first worker's state, acknowledged that he had his personal views, but that they were that of an, "old man:"

The coercion of bourgeois marriage and bourgeois legislation on the family enhance the evil and aggravate the conflicts. It is the coercion of ‘sacrosanct’ property. It sanctifies venality, baseness, and dirt. The conventional hypocrisy of ‘respectable’ bourgeois society takes care of the rest. People revolt against the prevailing abominations and perversions. And at a time when mighty nations are being destroyed, when the former power relations are being disrupted, when a whole social world is beginning to decline, the sensations of the individual undergo a rapid change. A stimulating thirst for different forms of enjoyment easily acquires an irresistible force. Sexual and marriage reforms in the bourgeois sense will not do. In the sphere of sexual relations and marriage, a revolution is approaching in keeping with the proletarian revolution. Of course, women and young people are taking a deep interest in the complex tangle of problems which have arisen as a result of this. Both the former and the latter suffer greatly from the present messy state of sex relations. Young people rebel against them with the vehemence of their years. This is only natural. Nothing could be falser than to preach monastic self-denial and the sanctity of the filthy bourgeois morals to young people. However, it is hardly a good thing that sex, already strongly felt in the physical sense, should at such a time assume so much prominence in the psychology of young people. The consequences are nothing short of fatal. Ask Comrade Lilina about it. She ought to have had many experiences in her extensive work at educational institutions of various kinds and you know that she is a Communist through and through, and has no prejudices.

Youth’s altered attitude to questions of sex is of course ‘fundamental’, and based on theory. Many people call it ‘revolutionary’ and ‘communist’. They sincerely believe that this is so. I am an old man, and I do not like it. I may be a morose ascetic, but quite often this so-called ‘new sex life’ of young people and frequently of the adults too seems to me purely bourgeois and simply an extension of the good old bourgeois brothel. All this has nothing in common with free love as we Communists understand it. No doubt you have heard about the famous theory that in communist society satisfying sexual desire and the craving for love is as simple and trivial as ‘drinking a glass of water’. A section of our youth has gone mad, absolutely mad, over this ‘glass-of-water theory’. It has been fatal to many a young boy and girl. Its devotees assert that it is a Marxist theory. I want no part of the kind of Marxism which infers all phenomena and all changes in the ideological superstructure of society directly and blandly from its economic basis, for things are not as simple as all that. A certain Frederick Engels has established this a long time ago with regard to historical materialism.

Because of this, despite his own moral feeling of attachment to the old world, he promoted a woman's section of the Bolsheviks to bring in prostitutes and other sex workers to be educated and then to aid the masses. Acknowledging that his own views were tainted, he let the culture take care of itself. Abortions were made cheap, legal, and safe. Divorces were made free, and available to both men and women to initiate. He presided over the first modern country to make homosexuality legal, to allow "so-called “wild marriage”; pair marriage, marriage in threes and even the complicated marriage of four people."

Lenin, as everyone agreed, having had better things to worry about, let things go.

Stalin took the opposite view after Lenin. It was Stalin that started putting a clamp on everything with the, "Decree on the Prohibition of Abortions, the Improvement of Material Aid to Women in Childbirth, the Establishment of State Assistance to Parents of Large Families, and the Extension of the Network of Lying-in Homes, Nursery schools and Kindergartens, the Tightening-up of Criminal Punishment for the Non-payment of Alimony, and on Certain Modifications in Divorce Legislation"

Trotsky took the view that socialist society had to come from proletarian society, which had to have been developed from bourgeois society in the same way socialism develops from capitalism.

I think it's an important question.

I agree with Connolly, Lenin, and Trotsky.

I think that these things are not issues that the part can wave a magic wand around and resolve. To some extent, you're going to have to change the base and watch the superstructure change. Changing the superstructure and dictating what it's supposed to be like before the world's base is changed seems like complete ass-hattery to me. It's making cosmetic changes to your hair and hoping it cures heart disease by doing so.

---

So to close up, amongst Marxists it's a big issue. It tends to come down to whether you think there can be socialism in one country (though there are other factors). The idea being that if you can just conjure socialism into being, then you have to pull society up with you. This isn't is as radical as one may think—Jefferson said similar things, amongst other founding fathers. The Puritains certainly thought it was the case, as did others.

The people who reject socialism in one country (and thus tend to gravitate to permanent revolution, but not always) tend to think that society needs to be let to evolve by itself.

If you want to read about a microcosm of this, the proletkult wanted to eradicate the old society and build a new one by what it thought socialist society would be like, while the Narkompros tended to take a view that new education and art had to grow out of the old classics.

[Truth To Power]

But you Communists would introduce community of women, screams the bourgeoisie in chorus.

The bourgeois sees his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women.

He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production.

For the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation of our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to be openly and officially established by the Communists. The Communists have no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial.

Our bourgeois, not content with having wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other’s wives.

Bourgeois marriage is, in reality, a system of wives in common and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalised community of women.

This is quite vague. OK, Communism will abolish prostitution, but is the hypothetical "Community of Women" part of the communist plan for the world or not? If yes, how is it supposed to work? And if no, what is the alternative?

When I first read the Communist Manifesto, I got a distinct impression that underneath all the bombastic theorizing, these guys were mostly just desperate to get laid, and figured that if there were no old rich guys monopolizing all the best pussy, they would have a chance. But then they realized that without the old rich guys, it would be the hot young studs who would monopolize all the best pussy, so to get any, they would have to make women common property, too. The result would be, of course, that the common property would be allocated by those with political power, which was who they intended to be. And so it was.

[mikema63]

What a tremendous mound of bullshit you have laid before us!

No facts, no evidence, nothing but straw manning and insults. A masterwork of your craft I must say.

[Truth To Power]

What a tremendous mound of bullshit you have laid before us!

No facts, no evidence, nothing but straw manning and insults. A masterwork of your craft I must say.

Tsk, tsk. Touched a bit of a nerve, I see....

[mikema63]

I wrote three whole sentences even, truely you have destroyed me!

[kobe]

Marx was married, Engels was a rich party boy. Yeah I'm going to doubt that motivation for them wanting to abolish the notion of women as private property.

[Decky]

Tsk, tsk. Touched a bit of a nerve, I see....

Indeed you have, I have long suspected that Mike became a red entirely to bag young ladies.