The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

If Caesar tells us of the Britons, who were at that time on the middle stage of barbarism: "they have their wives in groups of ten or twelve in common among themselves, and usually brothers with brothers and parents with children"—this is best explained as a Punaluan family. Barbaric mothers do not have 10–12 sons old enough to be able to keep common wives, but the American system of kinship, which corresponds to the Punaluan family, provides many brothers because all of a man's close and distant cousins are his brothers. The "parents with children" may be a misinterpretation by Caesar; that a father and son, or mother and daughter, should be in the same marriage group is not absolutely excluded by this system, but father and daughter, or mother and son, are. Likewise, this form of family provides the easiest explanation of the reports of Herodotus and other ancient writers regarding the community of women among wild and barbaric peoples. Punaluafamilie Punaluan family must also describe what Watson and Kaye (The People of India) relate about the Tikurs in Audh (north of the Ganges): "They live together (that is, sexually) almost indiscriminately in large communities, and if two people are considered married to each other, the bond is only nominal."

In the vast majority of cases, the institution of the Gens kinship group emerged directly from the Punaluan family. While the Australian class system also offers a starting point for this, the Australians have gentes clans, but no Punaluan family yet. However, their organization is too isolated for us to have to take it into account.

In all forms of group family, it is uncertain who the father of a child is, but it is certain who the mother is. Even if she calls all children of the entire family her children and has maternal duties toward them, she still knows her biological children among the others. It is therefore clear that, as long as group marriage exists, descent is only provable from the maternal side, thus only the female...