“WORLD LOST IN FIRE”: ESSAYS ON THE GRAMMAR OF WOMANHOOD was my 2023 academic research project which concluded ten years of studies in the fields of feminist, political and social theory. Grasping “womanhood” as a perspective through which the concept of a sovereign human soul can be accessed, it strings together feminist, postcolonial and ecopolitical works to craft a loveletter to woman and her plurality. Let’s take the discussion to Instagram: find me on @ferrarsfieldsmag and @snkllr.

“WORLD LOST IN FIRE”: ESSAYS ON THE GRAMMAR OF WOMANHOOD was my 2023 academic research project which concluded ten years of studies in the fields of feminist, political and social theory. Grasping “womanhood” as a perspective through which the concept of a sovereign human soul can be accessed, it strings together feminist, postcolonial and ecopolitical works to craft a loveletter to woman and her plurality. Let’s take the discussion to Instagram: find me on @ferrarsfieldsmag and @snkllr.

As an arbi­trary con­struct, our phal­loc­ra­cy cre­ates an illu­sion of pow­er that extends only with­in its con­fined bound­aries. It is a day­dream unaware of its own lim­i­ta­tions, craft­ed by a dream­er whose sto­ry­telling blurs the lines between real­i­ty and fic­tion. Through­out his­to­ry, this embod­ied dream becomes deeply ingrained in the social and polit­i­cal fab­ric. It takes on the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the world, asserts its own truths, and sub­mits to its estab­lished norms. Inevitably, it envelops the entire world with­in its dream. So how did the dream­er shape the world? How did a patri­archy arise from pre­his­toric com­mu­nal exis­tence dur­ing the dawn of human­i­ty? How did the dream­ing sew the dream into the fab­ric of real­i­ty?
Traces of pre­his­toric cul­tur­al and lin­guis­tic prac­tices exist glob­al­ly among non-West­ern com­mu­ni­ties, pro­vid­ing valu­able insights into the social cus­toms and group dynam­ics of ancient pop­u­la­tions. These com­mu­ni­ties exhib­it dis­tinct fam­i­ly and group struc­tures, char­ac­terised by rel­a­tive­ly egal­i­tar­i­an gen­der rela­tions. In The Ori­gin of the Fam­i­ly, Pri­vate Prop­er­ty and the State (1884), Ger­man Marx­ist philoso­pher Friedrich Engels utilis­es the research con­duct­ed by anthro­pol­o­gists Lewis Hen­ry Mor­gan and Johann Jakob Bachofen, specif­i­cal­ly Morgan’s Ancient Soci­ety (1877) and Bachofen’s Das Mut­ter­recht (1861), to recon­struct the trans­for­ma­tive process that shift­ed prim­i­tive com­mu­nal life into a patri­archy premised on women’s oppres­sion. Build­ing upon these dis­cov­er­ies, cer­tain cor­re­la­tions can be estab­lished regard­ing the for­ma­tion of such civ­i­liza­tions:

A con­nec­tion exists between an increas­ing asym­me­try of gen­der rela­tions and advance­ments in agri­cul­ture.
The advent of pri­vate prop­er­ty serves as a cat­a­lyst for the sub­ju­ga­tion of women, man­i­fest­ed through com­mod­i­fied forms of misog­y­nis­tic vio­lence.
The shift from com­mu­nal rela­tion­ships to monog­a­mous unions direct­ly con­tributes to the grad­ual ero­sion of matri­lin­eal inher­i­tance and lin­eage, dri­ven by the grow­ing eco­nom­ic inter­ests of men.

Engels’ Ori­gin sug­gests that the rise of civ­i­liza­tion in the east­ern hemi­sphere aligns with the emer­gence of pri­vate prop­er­ty and a nuclear fam­i­ly struc­ture cen­tred around monogamy. This per­spec­tive prompts us to ques­tion whether Engels’ the­o­ry might be key to expos­ing the ori­gins of the pre­vail­ing phal­lo­crat­ic world paradigm.

Birth of the Dream: The Origin of the Family,
Private Property and the State (1884)

Engels draws upon Lewis Hen­ry Morgan’s the­o­ry of kin­ship devel­op­ment in Ancient Soci­ety to iden­ti­fy dif­fer­ent fam­i­ly norms asso­ci­at­ed with each stage of human devel­op­ment. In sav­agery, there was the emer­gence of the con­san­guineous fam­i­ly from ani­mal­is­tic herds. The tran­si­tion from sav­agery to ear­ly bar­barism involved the Punalu­an fam­i­ly and group mar­riage. In mid­dle and late bar­barism, the pair­ing fam­i­ly became preva­lent. Final­ly, with the emer­gence of civ­i­liza­tion, pairs tran­si­tion into asym­met­ri­cal monogamy. Engels posits that an ances­tral form of human group organ­i­sa­tion exist­ed dur­ing the ear­ly stage of low­er sav­agery, which is sup­port­ed by evi­dence of the con­san­guineous lan­guage found in the tribes that were stud­ied by Mor­gan. The con­san­guineous fam­i­ly rep­re­sent­ed a more prim­i­tive and free form of com­mu­nal life. Sex­u­al rela­tions with­in this struc­ture were unre­strict­ed, and social norms regard­ing incest or age taboos had not yet emerged. The com­mu­ni­ty col­lec­tive­ly raised the young, and chil­dren con­sid­ered any­one in the group as their par­ents (Engels, Chap­ter II, 74–79). 

Mor­gan and Engels depict a grad­ual tran­si­tion from group mar­riages to small­er units com­posed of imme­di­ate fam­i­ly mem­bers, even­tu­al­ly lead­ing to monog­a­mous part­ner­ships. The first sig­nif­i­cant shift involved the pro­hi­bi­tion of sex­u­al rela­tions between blood-relat­ed fam­i­ly mem­bers, prompt­ing fam­i­lies to sep­a­rate and seek mar­riage with­in oth­er fam­i­lies. Known as the Punalu­an Fam­i­ly, this trans­for­ma­tion in fam­i­ly rela­tions result­ed in two piv­otal trends with pro­found impli­ca­tions for gen­der and social dynam­ics, mark­ing sig­nif­i­cant mile­stones in the emer­gence of a patri­archy.

I. The divi­sion of fam­i­lies and ear­ly social cus­toms led to the devel­op­ment of gens, which served as the foun­da­tion for the social order among var­i­ous bar­bar­ian soci­eties, and ulti­mate­ly paved the way for civ­i­liza­tion in Greece and Rome (Engels, The Punalu­an Fam­i­ly 85).  
II. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, a matri­lin­eal sys­tem emerged, trac­ing descent exclu­sive­ly through the mater­nal line. Johann Jakob Bachofen’s 1861 work, Das Mut­ter­recht, pro­posed an ear­ly form of matri­archy where women held not only dom­i­nance with­in house­holds but also enjoyed high social sta­tus. The promi­nence of women as the heads of fam­i­ly units stands out dur­ing the peri­ods of sav­agery and low­er stages of bar­barism (The Punalu­an Fam­i­ly 88). 
From the Punalu­an fam­i­ly, the pair­ing fam­i­ly devel­ops. As blood rela­tions become increas­ing­ly pro­hib­it­ed in mar­riage, the pair­ing fam­i­ly rep­re­sents a step towards asym­met­ri­cal monogamy. Dur­ing this tran­si­tion­al peri­od, the mater­nal right, while still in prac­tice, starts to under­go a trans­for­ma­tion into a sys­tem of male dom­i­nance that dis­ad­van­tages women. Polygamy and occa­sion­al infi­deli­ty become the rights of men, while women are expect­ed to adhere to strict fideli­ty (The Pair­ing Fam­i­ly 95). Adul­tery on the woman’s part is severe­ly pun­ished. 

Engels syn­the­sis­es the works of Bachofen and Mor­gan to con­clude that women, pre­vi­ous­ly esteemed for their role in repro­duc­tion, now face ret­ri­bu­tion for their mater­nal sta­tus (The Pair­ing Fam­i­ly 106). This process gives rise to sys­tem­at­ic vio­lence against women, such as “mar­riage by cap­ture.” (The Punalu­an Fam­i­ly 93) The insti­tu­tion of mar­riage becomes com­mod­i­fied, with women treat­ed as com­modi­ties. The fate of women with­out the abil­i­ty or desire to bear chil­dren dur­ing this time or any sub­se­quent peri­od is a sober­ing thought. The pair­ing fam­i­ly con­tin­ues in this organ­i­sa­tion until new social forces demand fur­ther rad­i­cal­iza­tion. At this point, with the small­est pos­si­ble con­ju­gal arrange­ment already estab­lished and no fur­ther exclu­sions pos­si­ble with­out dis­rupt­ing the atom­ic unit of the cou­ple, women’s auton­o­my dimin­ish­es. Engels argues that monogamy does not arise from “indi­vid­ual sex love” (The Monog­a­mous Fam­i­ly 117) but rather from the eco­nom­ic inter­ests of fathers. 

Dur­ing the mid­dle to upper stages of bar­barism, a sig­nif­i­cant advance­ment in agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion occurs in cer­tain regions, lead­ing to new­found wealth. The intro­duc­tion of slav­ery, cat­tle farm­ing, met­al­work­ing, and agri­cul­ture results in the accu­mu­la­tion of wealth pri­mar­i­ly con­trolled by the father. Under this new cir­cum­stance, fathers, equipped with pri­vate prop­er­ty, face a chal­lenge in find­ing direct heirs to whom they can pass down their accu­mu­lat­ed wealth. This is due to the pre­vail­ing matri­lin­eal lin­eage struc­ture with­in the pair­ing fam­i­ly, where the inher­i­tance is rec­og­nized through the gens rather than one’s own off­spring (The Pair­ing Fam­i­ly 105). Thus, the shift from the matri­lin­eal line of descent and inher­i­tance to a pater­nal line was dri­ven by prac­ti­cal con­sid­er­a­tions and a log­ic root­ed in the new soci­etal devel­op­ments. Engels presents this tran­si­tion as a seam­less process with min­i­mal dis­rup­tion, stat­ing that “all could remain as they were.” (The Pair­ing Fam­i­ly 106) He asserts that the over­throw of moth­er right rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant his­tor­i­cal defeat for women (The Pair­ing Fam­i­ly 107). 

The prac­tice of ear­ly monogamy was not pri­mar­i­ly dri­ven by roman­tic incli­na­tions. In the ear­ly monog­a­mous fam­i­ly, monogamy implied sex­u­al exclu­siv­i­ty for the woman while grant­i­ng the man the cul­tur­al and legal right to engage in extra­mar­i­tal affairs. If a woman were to attempt to exer­cise the same free­dom or seek to revive pre­vi­ous forms of sex­u­al rela­tion­ships, she would face severe pun­ish­ment (The Monog­a­mous Fam­i­ly 113). Engels argues that this new form of male suprema­cy is par­tic­u­lar­ly evi­dent in ancient Greece. Despite the pow­er­ful mytholo­gies that depict women as god­dess­es and hero­ines, rep­re­sent­ing rem­nants of a more egal­i­tar­i­an past, women assume a sec­ond class cit­i­zen role (113). Men in Greek soci­ety not only have female slaves but also demand female chasti­ty. “The Spar­tan women and the elite of the Athen­ian het­aer­ae are the only Greek women of whom the ancients speak with respect and whose words they thought it worth while to record,” Engels recounts (The Monog­a­mous Fam­i­ly 115). It is worth not­ing that Engels him­self makes rare men­tions of women in roles oth­er than moth­ers in his work.

Accord­ing to Engels, monogamy rep­re­sents the first class oppo­si­tion and misog­y­nis­tic oppres­sion the first class oppres­sion (The Monog­a­mous Fam­i­ly 117). Engels acknowl­edges that monogamy serves as the fun­da­men­tal struc­ture of civilised soci­ety, “in which the nature of the oppo­si­tions and con­tra­dic­tions ful­ly active in that soci­ety can be already stud­ied.” (The Monog­a­mous Fam­i­ly 118) For Engels, these con­tra­dic­tions become increas­ing­ly appar­ent in the fol­low­ing cen­turies, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the tran­si­tion of Vic­to­ri­an soci­ety into indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion. Engels argues that in the pro­le­tar­i­an rev­o­lu­tion against the rul­ing upper class, the pro­mo­tion of “indi­vid­ual sex love” and prac­tis­ing monogamy based on romance rather than pow­er and wealth becomes cru­cial (The Monog­a­mous Fam­i­ly 125). He asserts that by involv­ing women in fac­to­ry work and the labour mar­ket, which pro­vides them with the means to sup­port their fam­i­lies, most forms of gen­dered oppres­sion are erad­i­cat­ed with­in the work­ing class­es (125). Engels envi­sions a post-Vic­to­ri­an soci­ety as “a revival, in a high­er form, of the lib­er­ty, equal­i­ty and fra­ter­ni­ty of the ancient gentes.” (Bar­barism and Civ­i­liza­tion 258)

A Feminist Critique of The Origin’s methodology

Engels’ work, The Ori­gin of the Fam­i­ly, aims to exam­ine the emer­gence of the patri­archy and the dom­i­nance of pater­nal­ism and bio-essen­tial­ism. I con­sid­er it impor­tant to crit­i­cal­ly break down Engels’ argu­ments and rec­og­nize the lim­i­ta­tions and con­tra­dic­tions with­in his frame­work. 
Engels heav­i­ly relies on a bio-essen­tial­ist per­spec­tive that stereo­types women with­in the patri­ar­chal sys­tem he seeks to chal­lenge. He assumes an unques­tioned sex­u­al divi­sion of labour in pre­his­toric times, where women are con­sis­tent­ly por­trayed as moth­ers while men retain the role of providers. This nar­row por­tray­al over­looks the diverse expe­ri­ences and roles of women who do not fit into the con­ven­tion­al mould of moth­er­hood. Engels’ lim­it­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tion of women, except for his brief men­tions of the Spar­tan women, rais­es ques­tions about the extent of his under­stand­ing of the plu­ral­i­ty of women’s expe­ri­ences and their roles in ear­ly com­mu­nal life.

More­over, Engels sug­gests that the tran­si­tion to monogamy was pri­mar­i­ly dri­ven by women’s desire for chasti­ty due to chang­ing eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances, while “[t]his advance could not in any case have orig­i­nat­ed with the men if only because it has nev­er occurred to them, even to this day, to renounce the plea­sures of actu­al group mar­riage.” (Engels, The Pair­ing Fam­i­ly 102). How­ev­er, these asser­tions can be seen as reflect­ing a nat­u­ral­is­tic under­stand­ing of women inclined towards monogamy and men inclined towards polygamy. Engels’ analy­sis rais­es con­cerns about his own bias­es and lim­i­ta­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in the con­text of the Vic­to­ri­an era. His focus on the val­u­a­tion of women as moth­ers and the silenc­ing of voic­es oppos­ing pre­scribed moth­er­hood roles may be influ­enced by the soci­etal norms and cul­tur­al dis­course of his time. 

In recount­ing the “defeat” of the female sex (The Pair­ing Fam­i­ly 107), Engels falls short in con­tex­tu­al­is­ing such a sup­posed male instinct to dom­i­nate over women, espe­cial­ly when con­sid­er­ing the premise of an egal­i­tar­i­an prim­i­tive com­mu­ni­ty. In Engels and the Eman­ci­pa­tion of Women (1998) French fem­i­nist soci­ol­o­gist Josette Trat points out this issue, ques­tion­ing the nature of this curi­ous “instinct” and argu­ing that it pre­sup­pos­es rela­tions of dom­i­na­tion that Engels has yet to explain (Trat 90).

The close cor­re­la­tion between the emer­gence of pri­vate prop­er­ty and the oppres­sion of women, as pro­posed by Engels, offers an intrigu­ing the­o­ry for under­stand­ing the devel­op­ment of an ear­ly patri­archy and the pro­gres­sion of the patri­ar­chal sys­tem with­in the his­tor­i­cal con­text of Europe. We are com­pelled to won­der whether essen­tial­ism, which ascribes inher­ent dom­i­nance instincts to men and sub­mis­sion instincts to women, pro­vides a valid expla­na­tion for the ascen­dan­cy of one gender’s pow­er over the oth­er. Orig­in’s silence on this mat­ter neces­si­tates a more pro­found explo­ration into the under­ly­ing rea­sons behind the estab­lish­ment of patri­ar­chal pow­er struc­tures.

By exam­in­ing how one gen­der chose to dom­i­nate anoth­er from a range of pos­si­ble actions, we can uncov­er that these pow­er dynam­ics are often dri­ven by strate­gic exer­tions of force and con­trol rather than any inher­ent nat­ur­al or log­i­cal moti­va­tion. This chal­lenges the notion that the patri­ar­chal sys­tem emerged organ­i­cal­ly or was found­ed on any legit­i­mate jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. Instead, it sug­gests that the sys­tem may have been delib­er­ate­ly con­struct­ed and main­tained to legit­imise the sub­ju­ga­tion of women, while con­ceal­ing the arbi­trary nature of its foun­da­tions.
In a clever manoeu­vre, the patri­ar­chal sys­tem sus­tains its own pow­er by per­pet­u­at­ing the belief in women’s sup­posed nat­ur­al sub­mis­sion. By instill­ing this belief, it effec­tive­ly main­tains con­trol over those it oppress­es. It is cru­cial to rec­og­nize that patri­ar­chal pow­er is always con­tin­gent upon con­trol­ling what it fears. 

By choos­ing not to ful­ly engage with the prob­lem of essen­tial­ism, Engels leaves us with an incom­plete pic­ture. How­ev­er, despite its lim­i­ta­tions, Engels’ work can serve as an imag­i­na­tive incen­tive. It encour­ages us to use our imag­i­na­tion to envi­sion the past as well as the future. In this imag­i­na­tion, we take our first step beyond the world. While recon­struct­ing events from such dis­tant times will always involve a degree of spec­u­la­tion, the act of using our imag­i­na­tion to visu­alise the poten­tial ori­gins of our present world sys­tem is a pow­er­ful tool for chal­leng­ing and dis­man­tling exist­ing struc­tures. There is a con­tin­u­ous thread that con­nects us to these ancient pop­u­la­tions, and by inter­ro­gat­ing and expand­ing upon Engels’ ideas, we can approach them with a play­ful attitude.

Oth­er chap­ters in this series:

Imag­in­ing Dark Con­ti­nents

Bib­li­og­ra­phy

Engels, Friedrich. The Ori­gin of the Fam­i­ly, Pri­vate Prop­er­ty and the State. Pen­guin Clas­sics, 2010. Orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in Ger­man under the title Der Ursprung der Fam­i­lie, des Pri­vateigen­thums und des Staats, Hot­tin­gen-Zürich, 1884.

Mor­gan, Lewis Hen­ry. Ancient Soci­ety. Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty Press eBooks, 1964, doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674865662. Orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in 1877.

Trat, Josette. “Engels and the Eman­ci­pa­tion of Women.” Sci­ence & Soci­ety, Friedrich Engels: A Crit­i­cal Cen­te­nary Appre­ci­a­tion, vol. 62, no. 1, Spring 1998, pp. 88–105. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40403689.

Mer­cy Fer­rars is a philoso­pher and writer based in Berlin.
http://www.mercyferrars.de