thus he further developed the idea put forward in his early writings with marx that the main objective of the institution of the family was to ensure the transmission of private wealth down the generations in his observation engels argued that within the context of the patriarchal family the organization of households and the care given to their members mostly by women became a private service that did not form part of social production engels even went so far as to identify the strain created in this context by the growing need of capitalism to incorporate women into the workforce indeed the view was taken that women could only free themselves from this burden and achieve equality with men once domestic and care work had become socialized