Property and Gender: Irrational Women and Rational Men

Abstract

Marxist theorists refer to feudalism and the type of society and economy characterised by serfdom, as generally succeeding the early economic systems based on slavery:

The means of production and of exchange … were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and exchange …. The feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. (Marx & Engels, 1958)