Firstly, what households is Engels talking about here?
The households that existed right before the advent of capitalism in Europe, or further back and abroad?
Because households weren’t monolithic before capitalism, there were different ways of organizing them.
Secondly, capitalism didn’t invent private property.
Every society had a mix of private and public property, and of hierarchy and heterachy.
Capitalism extolled private, but in practice it too was a mix.
Families always tended to look out for themselves and theirs first, and they always will, and there’s nothing wrong with that, in fact it’s normal, natural and healthy.
Before capitalism, families tended to be extensive, after capitalism, nuclear.
Within families, property tended to be shared, but between families, hoarded.
And it’s not now?
A mom with kids is protected and provided for, either by her husband and/or the state, whether she stays with or divorces him.
I’m not exactly sure how things were in the 19th century, but today, we don’t have a patriarchal family, fathers/husbands and/or the state owe mothers/wives provisions, she doesn’t have to sell herself into servitude or slavery for them, if he withholds them from her she can take half or more of his.
But even if she did have to sell herself into servitude for them, then that would be fair, if men are giving women something, it’s only fair they’re getting something about equal in return i.e. baths, massages, blowjobs, dinner, etcetera.
The moment mothers/wives stop providing these services for or divorce fathers/husbands to live on their own or off government, they’re not entitled to anything from them.
No, it makes him a slave to his wife.
He is obliged to protect and provide for her, but she’s not obliged to him for anything.
She doesn’t even have to stay with him or look after their kids, she can divorce him, let him keep the kids or give them up for adoption, and still take much or most of his money.
And of course she has the sole right to abort their kids (if it’s a woman’s right to choose whether their unborn children live or die, then it’s a man’s right to choose whether he’s responsible for them or not), and most of the time she gets custody even when custody is sought by both her and him.
What Engels is advocating for here is the complete enslavement of man to his wife.
He is a female supremacist.
You are a misandrist, and you are trying to destroy the family, unbeknownst to you or not.