The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State- Engels

The book begins with an extensive discussion of Ancient Society which describes the major stages of human development as commonly understood in Engels' time. In contrast to other contemporary essays on the subject, Engels emphasizes the importance not of primitive psychological development but rather of social relations of power and control over material resources, sometimes related to the development of new technologies. Morgan, whose account of prehistory Engels largely accepts as given, focuses primarily on the first two stages of Savagery and Barbarism but only ventures as far as the transition into Civilization. The terms Savagery and Barbarism as used by Morgan were meant to be objective and not terms of derision or disparagement as they might be assumed to be then or now. Engels summarizes these stages as follows:

1. Savagery – the period in which man's appropriation of products in their natural state predominates; the products of human art are chiefly instruments which assist this appropriation.
2. Barbarism – the period during which man learns to breed domestic animals and to practice agriculture, and acquires methods of increasing the supply of natural products by human activity.
3. Civilization – the period in which man learns a more advanced application of work to the products of nature, the period of industry proper and of art.

In the following chapter on family, Engels tries to connect the transition into these stages with a change in the way that family is defined and the rules by which it is governed. Much of this is still taken from Morgan, although Engels begins to intersperse his own ideas on the role of family into the text. Morgan acknowledges four stages in the family.
Of the three main epochs, savagery, barbarism and civilisation, he is naturally concerned only with the first two, and with the transition to the third. He subdivides each of these two epochs into a lower, middle and upper stage, according to the progress made in the production of the means of subsistence;
1. Savagery
1. Lower Stage. Infancy of the human race. Man still lived in his original habitat, tropical or subtropical forests, dwelling, at least partially, in trees; this alone explains his continued survival in face of the large beasts of prey. Fruits, nuts and roots served him as food; the formation of articulate speech was the main achievement of this period.
2. Middle Stage. When the food was not so much available and the weather became inclement to them, they began to restrict their movements to a fixed place and live on   the utilisation of fish (under which head we also include crabs, shellfish and other aquatic animals) for food and with the employment of fire. These two are complementary, since fish food becomes fully available only by the use of fire. This new food, however, made man independent of climate and locality. By following the rivers and coasts man was able, even in his savage state, to spread over the greater part of the earth’s surface. The crude, unpolished stone implements of the earlier Stone Age — the so-called palaeolithic — which belong wholly, or predominantly, to this period, and are scattered over all the continents, are evidence of these migrations.
3. Upper Stage. Begins with the invention of the bow and arrow, whereby wild game became a regular item of food, and hunting one of the normal occupations. Bow, string and arrow constitute a very composite instrument, the invention of which presupposes long accumulated experience and sharpened mental powers, and, consequently, a simultaneous acquaintance with a host of other inventions.
2. Barbarism
l. Lower Stage. Dates from the introduction of pottery. This latter had its origin, demonstrably in many cases and probably everywhere, in the coating of baskets or wooden vessels with clay in order to render them fireproof, whereby it was soon discovered that moulded clay also served the purpose without the inner vessel.
2. Middle Stage. Begins, in the East, with the domestication of animals; in the West, with the cultivation of edible plants by means of irrigation, and with the use of adobes (bricks dried in the sun) and stone for buildings.
3. Upper Stage. Begins with the smelting of iron ore and passes into civilisation through the invention of alphabetic writing and its utilisation for literary records. At this stage, which, as we have already noted, was traversed independently only in the eastern hemisphere, more progress was made in production than in all the previous stages put together.
From the upper stage of the Savagery ownership of the productive forces begins and the division of work begins among the different section of the human society.
From the lower stage of Barbarism surplus value began to accumulate and a section of a community began to become rich than the other. Class began to develop and exploitation of one class over that of the other started..
A family, private propety and the state began to exist.