The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1910-11-10
Socialism and Marriage.

The following article taken from
the Appeal to Reason, is In answer
to the inquiry Of a subscriber to that
paper asking the editor to state the
socialists view of marriage, and 1t
is published in this paper by request
of one of the prominent citizens of
this county:
AS to the position of the socialist
party on marriage, it is precisely and
clearly stated in that historical docu-
ment, the Communist Manifesto"
written by Karl Marx and Frederic
Engels in 1847:
abolition of the family! Even
the most radical flare up at this
infamous proposal of the Common
lists.
On what foundation is the pres
ent family, based? On capital, on
private gain. In it's completely de-
veloped form this family exists only
among the bourgeoisie. But the
state of things finds it's compliment
in the practical absence of the fam
lily among the proletarians and in
public prostitution.
The bourgeois family will varnish
as a matter of course when its COM
pliment varnishes, and both will van
ish with the vanishing Of capital.
Do you charge us with wanting
to stop the exploitation of children
by their parents? To this crime We
plead guilty.
But, you will say, we destroy the
most ha.lowed of relations, when
we replace home education by
social.
And your education? Is it not
also social, and determined by the
social conditions under which you
educate, by the Intervention direct
or indirect, of society by means of
schools, etc. The Commonists have
not invented the Intervention of So
ciety in education; they do but seek
to alter the character of that inter-
vention, and to rescue education from
the influence of the ruling class.
The bourgeois clap-trap about the
family and education, about the hal
lowed correlation of parent and
child, become all the more disgust
ing, as, by the action of modern
industry, all family ties among the
proletarians are torn asunder, and
their children transformed into
simple articles of commerce and in
struments of labor.
| But you Communists would intro
duce community of women, screams
the whole bourgeoisie in chorus.
| The bourgeois sees in his wife a
mere instrument of production. He
hears that the instruments of pro-
duction are to be exploited in COM
mon, and, naturally, can come to no
other conclusion than that the lot
of being common to all will like
wise fall to the women.
He has not even suspicion that
the real point aimed at is to do away
with the status of women as mere
instruments of production.
| For the rest, nothing is more ri
diculous than the virtuous indigna-
ton of our bourgeois at the COM
tend, is to be openly and officially
established by the Communists. The
| Communists have no. need to intro
duce community of women; it has
existed almost from time immemor-
ial.
Our bourgeois, not content with
having the wives and daughters OF
their proletarians at their disposal,
not to speak of common prostitutes,
take the greatest pleasure in Sc
ducing each others wives.
Bourgeois is in realty system of
wives in common, and thus what
the Communists might possibly be
reproached with, is that they desire
to introduce, in substitution for a
hypocritally concealed, an openly
legalized community of women. For
the rest it is self-evident that the
abolition of the present system of
production must bring with it the
abolition of the community of wo-
men springing from that system, i.
e., of prostitution both public and
private"
| Frederic Engels, in his "Origin
of the Family, Private Property and
the State,' says: We are now ap-
preaching social revolution, in
which the old economic foundations
of monogamy will disappear just as
surely as those of it's complement,
prostitution. Monogamy arose
through the concentration of con-
siderable wealth in one hand-a
mans hand-and from the endeavor
to bequeath this wealth to the child
rem of this man to the exclusion of all
others: This necessitated~ mono
gamy on the woman's, but not on
the mans part. Hence this mono
gamy of women in no way hindered
open or secret polygamy of men.
Now, the impending social. revolu-'
ton will reduce this whole care of
inheritance to a minimum by chang
ing at least the overwhelming part
of permanent and Unbeatable wealth
the means of production-into
social property. Since tnonogamy
was caused by economic conditions
will it disappear when these causes
are abolished?
One might reply, not without
reason; not only will it not disap-
pear but it rather will be perfectly
realized. For with the TRANSFORMED
ton of the means of production in
to collective property, wage labor
will also disappear, and with 1.-THE
proletariat and the necessity for q
certain statisticallv ascertainab1e