The Formation of the State and the Oppression of Women: Some Theoretical Considerations and A Case Study in England and Wales

Abstract

This paper seeks to demonstrate the interconnection between the oppression of women and class formation. Primitive social formations, barbar ian chiefdoms, and emergent states are examined in the relation of human beings to land and in the changing status of women. The patron-client relationship is described as a social relation which, maintaining its form but changing its con tent, may facilitate a transition from an egalitarian to an exploitative social for mation. The relation of women to patron-clientage is discussed. The effects on non-elite women and men of the destruction of the productive-reproductive unity of society is examined through the history of England and Wales.