What is meant by material life?

The way i interpret "material life", the term that Marx and Engels use, is that which is symbolic of materialistic ideal. Materialism can be defined as, "a doctrine that the only or highest values or objectives lie in material well-being and in the furtherance of material progress". In regards to Marxism and this assignment I found another definition that I thought was well-fitting: "a doctrine that economic or social change is materially caused." Further "clicking" on Merriam-Webster online brought me to a definition of historical materialism and Marxist theory. I gather that what is meant by material life in this context is that social and economic changes are driven by material aspects of life; people often hear or say the phrase "mind over matter" but in this aspect, "material life" is on the contrary being matter over mind. Life and history itself for that matter is constantly changed in accordance with this "material life" ideal. This is quite evident as the world today is highly driven by material ideals. We live in a capitalist society where "money talks" and what you have is considered by most to be more valued than who or what you are. Material life is what drives our world, and in regards to Marxism this can be applied to the passage my group had to paraphrase at the bottom of page 19. It is explained that history is driven by individual acts and productive forces and these correlating forces is what changes the world and continuously evolves throughout history. What this means then is that these forces (productive and individual acts) develop due to a heavy influence of materialism economically and socially.