1884: london
an alternative reality
This is the origin of monogamy as far as we
can trace it back among the most civilized
and highly developed people of antiquity. it
was not in any way the fruit of individual sex
love, with which it had nothing whatever to
do; marriages remained as before marriages
of convenience. it was the first form of the
family to be based, not on natural, but on
economic conditions—on the victory of pri
vate property over primitive, natural commu
nal property. The greeks themselves put the
matter quite frankly: the sole exclusive aims
of monogamous marriage were to make the
man supreme in the family, and to propagate,
as the future heirs to his wealth, children in
disputably his own. otherwise, marriage was
a burden, a duty which had to be performed,
whether one liked it or not, to gods, state, and
one’s ancestors. in athens the law exacted
from the man not only marriage but also the
performance of a minimum of socalled con
jugal duties.
To be a successful father there’s one absolute
rule: when you have a kid, don’t look at it
for the first two years.
—Ernest Hemingway, 1954
wealth in the hands of a single individual—
a man—and from the need to bequeath this
wealth to the children of that man and of no
other. For this purpose, the monogamy of the
woman was required, not that of the man, so
this monogamy of the woman did not in any
way interfere with open or concealed polyga
my on the part of the man. but by transform
ing by far the greater portion, at any rate, of
permanent, heritable wealth—the means of
production—into social property, the coming
social revolution will reduce to a minimum
all this anxiety about bequeathing and inher
iting. Having arisen from economic causes,
will monogamy then disappear when these
causes disappear?
one might answer, not without reason: far
from disappearing, it will on the contrary be re
alized completely. For with the transformation
of the means of production into social property
there will disappear also wagelabor, the prole
tariat, and therefore the necessity for a certain—
statistically calculable—number of women to
surrender themselves for money. prostitution
disappears; monogamy, instead of collapsing, at
last becomes a reality—also for men.
in any case, therefore, the position of men
will be very much altered. but the position of
women, of all women, also undergoes significant
