Final answer:
Friedrich Engels posited that capitalists benefit from a patriarchal system as it enforces the owner-worker dynamic in households, with women economically dependent on men, similar to workers on capitalists. This system maintains unpaid domestic labor, thus supporting the workforce and preserving capitalist power structures.
Step-by-step explanation:
According to Friedrich Engels, capitalists benefit from a patriarchal system as it replicates the owner-worker relationship within the household, with women in the role of the proletariat. This relationship is underpinned by women's economic dependence on men for wages, a dependence potentially deepened when women are reliant on their spouses for economic support. Engels associated the family structure and gender roles with the broader capitalist system, where the exploitation of the working class by those who own the means of production leads to class stratification and societal inequality. Engels reasoned that this domestic dynamic serves to reinforce the capitalist system, as the family structure becomes yet another sphere where the hierarchical dynamics of capitalism are mirrored and perpetuated. Women becoming wage earners can shift the power within the household, suggesting a move towards more democratic home lives, but even then they may still end up shouldering the majority of domestic responsibilities. The interconnection of patriarchy and capitalism thus benefits capitalists by maintaining a system where the unpaid or underpaid domestic labor of women supports the workforce without challenging the existing power structures.