Women and Development (WAD) Marxist historians, beginning with Frederick Engle's (1942), assert that the Agricultural Revolution, through the establishment of stationary communities for growing crops and domesticating animals, led to hierarchical structures in societies presumed to have been previously classless. Engels argued that the institution of private property and consequent exaltation of monogamy contributed to the decline of women's status Marxist feminists hypothesize that the desire to retain privately held property within blood-lines (a need that did not arise in the period of communal ownership) as well as to control children' s labor made men attempt to control their wives sexuality through monogamous marriage. This gender hierarchy was intensified with the spread of capitalism. Production for direct use, which was a hallmark of more communal societies, was replaced by production for exchange, which was taken over by men and came to be viewed as a 'publi