There were two desires behind the setting up of religious associations [broadly, churches. These were ‘the express reasons’ – what people said they wanted):
• Securing the favour of overruling powers [that is, ‘the gods’ or ‘God’ or something like that , not political powers].
• Keeping evil influences away
The express reason for the organizing of family life [rather than, say, living in communes] lay in two desires:
• The gratification of appetites [sex, safety, food and so on]
• The securing of a family line that extended through several generations
The express reason for the setting up of an economic, political, and social system that depended on everyone having a job [I think this is what he means; I’d’ve said ‘system-wide’ rather than ‘systematic’ – the point is that until the advent of what the writer calls ‘systematic labor’ most people had ‘a liege-lord’ (someone they existed to please), and these aristocrats did nothing productive unless it suited them] was based on several needs [but the writer is a bit unsure of his ground here, because he qualifies the needs as ‘for the most part’]:
• The fact that people were already working unpaid for a master [I don’t think the writer is talking about slaves as we know them]
• …