“The bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion than that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women. He has not even a suspicion that the real point is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production. For the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation of our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to be openly and officially established by the Communists. The Communists have no need to introduce the community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial. 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 seducing each other’s wives. Bourgeois marriage is in reality a system of wives in common and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with, is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalised 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 women springing from that system, i.e., of prostitution both public and private.” ― Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
incredibly funny considering he cheated on his wife with their housekeeper while Jenny Marx was travelling to another country to beg relatives for money after having all their possessions taken away due to debt, in complete poverty, dealing with incredibly ill (including 2-3 dead children of what would eventually be 4 dead children in childhood). he got the housekeeper pregnant, then because he knew jenny would leave him if she knew, he gave the baby to engels to raise and claim to be the father of, and kept his cheating a secret.
the reason he did this was not because he loved her, but because she not only did all the childcare and housework, but jenny marx is the entire reason we know marx today. she largely introduced him, then a very young man 4 years her junior (marx was likely around 18-19 when they met. they married six years after first meeting, when he was 25 and she was 29), to the ideas of socialism and communism, as well as women’s rights (she is who inspired engels in regards to his views on prostitution and women’s liberation as well, the three of them were in political groups together). the words spoken above almost certainly actually came from his wife that she shared with him. she was a wealthy aristocrat that gave up her life of luxury and wealth to live her ideals, and marry the man she loved.
jenny marx collaborated with marx in his early writing, they wrote the books and essays together and shared ideas. then once jenny had her first child, despite all of marx’s posturing, like any other man, he expected her to become mother first. and yet while doing so, and increasingly raising more and more children, while struggling with extreme poverty and poor health because marx’s books we not selling, and he made no other money, she still contributed ideas, edited all his work ot…actually make sense and be good, and transcripted his completely illegible writing into actual draft books to be published and dispersed. he sat around all day “thinking” and after months to years, just came up with shitty drafts, and she’d turn them into his famous (and less famous) books. she dealt with the entire business side of his philosophy, she made the money. he would sit there and not be able to write anything until she made him so that their family could survive.
even when marx was imprisoned and exiled, she publicly defended him, continued to spread his (aka their) work, and got kicked out of several countries and towns because of it. she did all of the above, joined and supported all of his political groups and worked non stop in activism even with children her entire life, most of her kids died in childhood, and she lived a miserable life, all for him, and he fucking took all the credit, didn’t follow his own claimed ideals, and cheated on her.
near the end of her life, she came to resent marx and how he gave her nothing when she gave him everything. he was yet just another man treating a woman like a thing, a tool.
how many people know the name jenny marx? how many people know that without her, we would know no karl marx (because he was such a terrible writer and unmotivated, lethargic man that he never would have finished nor released a single (good) book, admitting it himself in letters to engels in regards to the affair)? without her, we would have none of this. without her, there would be no lenin, no ho chi minh, communism and socialism would likely look very different, many countries would be unimaginably different, or shockingly frozen in time. the basis of the most popular communist, socialist, and marxist groups and politicians and activists would not exist. she is likely one of the most influential women in political history and no one knows.
I love putting respect on Jenny’s name, but there is absolutely no evidence that Marx ever slept with Helene Demuth or that Freddy Demuth was Marx’s son.
That rumor didn’t even start until years after Marx’s death, and it was started by a woman who claims Engels admitted to her on his deathbed. It was not seen as a credible claim at the time and there’s very little evidence that any member of the Marx or Engels family ever believed it. (The main evidence is that Freddy himself once claimed to be Marx’s son in order to get money out of the Marx estate.)
Notably, the primary source on this claim of Engels’ deathbed confession is a copy of a copy of a copy of a letter sent years after Engels’ death, and only “newly discovered” in the 1960s. The original letter is lost. The original letter - or something similar to it - probably did exist because there are a few letters back and forth between other socialists of the time discussing the rumor. Mostly to talk about how they think the woman spreading it is full of shit. But I just think that’s an interesting tidbit.
And finally - any source that treats the “Freddy Marx” theory as if it’s established fact is a poorly-researched source. Take anything else it says with a grain of salt.
By community of women, he is talking about women having multiple sexual partners / prostitution. He is saying, communists are accused of wanting to force women into having multiple sexual partners / prostitution, but you are all fucking each others’ wives anyways, so communists wouldn’t be forcing women to do this, we’d just be being upfront about it. This is not a very feminist quote. It is essentially an “I fucked your wife” joke, that he follows up with a brief ethical claim that women should not be made to have nonconsensual / prostituted sex ever, under any economic system. So cheating and having a bastard child is not an irony here or even out of character for the quote. The bulk of the set-up is Marx saying (1) be serious, everybody cheats, and (2) the real oppression is that wives are seen as nothing more than tools to create children that inherit… so yeah why would it shock you that he had an affair that subverted the capitalist purpose marriage. I’m not saying he’s not a dirtbag. But he’s being consistent.
That’s an issue with Marx’s writing and especially of English translations. His sarcasm doesn’t translate well. That’s not at all what he’s saying.
A better way of interpreting that line is “The bourgeois claim we’re trying to turn women into public property. They only think that because they see women as property in the first place. We’re not the ones turning women into public property, they are - because they’re all sleeping with each others’ wives and seeing prostitutes on the side, and because it is bourgeois property relations and bourgeois marriage that forces women into prostitution in the first place.”
Marx and Engels had a lot to say about the moral hypocrisy of the bourgoisie. Basically, they would use “family values” rhetoric to claim communists were coming to destroy the moral fabric of society. Marx and Engels would point out that the “family values” of the bourgoisie are a lie. The full theoretical underpinning of this argument is in Origin of the Family, if you’re curious.
Both Marx and Engels were opposed to prostitution. Engels was also opposed to marriage and was kind of a “free love” guy. Marx was a big fan of marriage and, by all accounts, was kind of a Wife Guy. Engels used to make fun of him for being so devoted to Jenny. He named all of his daughters Jenny. That doesn’t mean he never had an affair - plenty of Wife Guys do. But there’s no evidence of it anywhere at all.
