The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the StatePenguin Classics brings this seminal work by Engels back in to print, with a new introduction by historian Tristram Hunt The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), was a provocative and profoundly influential critique of the Victorian nuclear family. Engels argued that the traditional monogamous household was in fact a recent construct, closely bound up with capitalist societies. Under this patriarchal system, women were servants