A Research On Marx And Engels' Thought Of Marriage And Family

Before Marx and Engels, people generally agreed about Hagel's concept of marriage and family. As an ethical entity, family is only based on "love", and supported by the property. The development of families is to establish a new marriage and family through their children. Hegel's view about marriage and family cannot reasonably explain the history of marriage and family, until Marx and Engels critically inherited and transcended the theory of marriage and family of Hegel and Morgan's, and standing on the point of view of historical materialism to summarize the development process of family and marriage, to make people have a fundamental change on the idea about marriage and family.The thought of Marx and Engels about marriage and family, mainly includes four aspects: the historical evolution of the marriage and family, the nature of the marriage and family, the function of the marriage and family, and the ethics of marriage and family. First, the form of marriage and family experienced from group marriage, the pairing marriage to the monogamous marriage, and there are different forms of marriage in different historical periods, only in Communist society, will real "monogamous" marriage family come ture. Second, Marx and Engels analyzed the nature of the marriage and family from the two kinds of production, which is the social organization of the continuous development and evolution. Besides, marriage and family first plays the economic function and fertility function, and constantly derived from the political function and emotional function. With the development of the marriage and family, the economic function is gradually weakened and the emotional function becomes more and more prominent. Finally, the ethics of marriage and family requires man and woman to marry on the basis of full equality, love and free.Based on the form and status of "ancient marriage and family", Marx and Engels harshly criticized the materialization of the relations between marriage and family caused by capitalism and paid close attention to the free and all-round development of human being. They related the human history with marriage and family whose ultimate aim is to realize man's free and comprehensive development. Their ideas not only improved "two-Production" theory which promoted Chinese and western feminism and women's liberation, but also guided scientifically the construction of Chinese ideal marriage and family.