that the family has passed through four
successive forms, and is now in a fifth, the question at once arises
whether this form can be permanent in the future. The only answer that
can be given is that it must advance as society advances, and change as
society changes, even as it has done in the past. It is the creature of
the social system and will reflect its culture."

Engels says:

"We have three main forms of the family, corresponding in general to the
three main stages of human development. For savagery group marriage, for
barbarism the pairing family, for civilization, monogamy supplemented by
adultery and prostitution."

THE PAIRING FAMILY

"A certain pairing for a longer or shorter term took place even during
the group marriage or still earlier. A man had his principal wife among
other women, and he was to her the principal husband among others....
Such a habitual pairing would gain ground the more the gens developed
and the more numerous the classes of "brothers" and "sisters" became who
were not permitted to marry one another....

"By this increasing complication of marriage restrictions, group
marriage became more and more impossible; it was displaced by the
pairing family.

"The communistic household, in which most or all the women belong to one
and the same gens, while the husbands come from different gentes, is the
cause and foundation of the general and widespread supremacy of women in
primeval times.

"It is one of the most absurd notions derived from eighteenth century
enlightenment that in the beginning of society woman was the slave of
man. Among all savages and barbarians of the lower and middle stages,
sometimes even of the higher stage, women not only have freedom but are
held in high esteem."

In writing of the pairing family among the Iroquois, Arthur Wright says:

"As to their families, at a time when they still lived in their old long
houses (communistic households of several families) ... a certain clan
(gens) always reigned so that the women chose their husbands from other
clans. The female part generally ruled the house; the provisions were
held in common; but woe to the luckless husband or lover who was too
indolent or too clumsy to contribute his share to the common stock. No
matter how many children or how much private property he had in the
house, he was liable at any moment to receive a hint to gather up his
belongings and get out. And he could not dare to venture any resis