Karl Marx
On Women

(1818-1883)

Karl Marx wrote little about women's oppression and then only as part of working-class oppression, something that has left a confusing legacy and numerous interpretations.

1845: Revelation of the Mystery of the Emancipation of Women, Or Louise Morel from The Holy Family (a polemic against the Young Hegelians)

1848: Proletarians and Communists from The Communist Manifesto (written by Marx and Engels)

1867: From Capital Vol I part III, The Production of Absolute Surplus Value, Ch X, The Working-day, Section 3 — Branches of English Industry without Legal Limits to Exploitation

1867: From Capital Vol I part IV, The Production of Relative Surplus Value, Ch. 15: Machinery and Modern Industry. Section 2 — The Value Transferred by Machinery to the Product

1867: From Capital Vol I part IV, The Production of Relative Surplus Value, Ch. 15: Machinery and Modern Industry. Section 3a — The Employment of Women and Children

1867: From Capital Vol I part IV, The Production of Relative Surplus Value, Ch. 15: Machinery and Modern Industry. Section 9 — The Factory Acts. Sanitary and Educational Clauses of the same. Their General Extension in England.

From Marx’s Correspondence

Marx To Ludwig Kugelmann, 5 December 1868
Marx To Ludwig Kugelmann, 12 December 1868

Frederick Engels

(1820-1895)

Though nearly a lifetime theoretical collaborator with Karl Marx, it is Engels that more often took up women's issues in his work, in particular, Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, which became very influential to later Marxist writers such as Bebel and Lenin.

1845: The Conditions of the Working-Class in England

Chapter 8: Single Branches of Industry.

1884: Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

Chapter 2: The Family
Chapter 9: Barbarism and Civilisation

From Engels’ Correspondence

Engels to Gertrud Guillaume-Schack, c. 5 July 1885
Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, 7 December 1889
Engels to Paul Ernst, 5 June 1890
Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, 6 January 1892