Anneke van Baalen, HIDDEN MASCULINITY, Max Weber's historical sociology of bureaucracy.
Amsterdam 1994. Chapter 2 The Weber's private, sex defined values.
47
Neither Weber nor Weber-Schnitger attacked the Morgan/Engels theory as a whole. Weber-
Schnitger proposed an alternative theory, criticizing socialist or feminist theories in the
course of it; she sees them as symptomatic of the absence of scientific abilities among
practical feminist women who still believe in the fables of the 'stages of development'
72
. It is
this theory which, though Weber nowhere refers to it, is the base for his treatment of 'original'
relations between women and men in ES.
8. Weber-Schnitger's Ehefrau und Mutter in der Rechtsentwicklung
Weber-Schnitger, as I said earlier, did not share Weber's methodological position.
73
She
does not try to create 'objectivity' or 'value-freedom' - which she considers to be a 'phantom'
- but takes as her starting-point her own values and cultural ideas, which in her view have to
differ from those of men, since women live different lives. As she wants to diminish the rift
between objective ('sachliche') and personal culture to which men are subjected, in order to
harmonize the dissonants in her personality and develop this personality as a whole
74
, she
does not feel obliged to separate sociological and political statements; her values and ideals
lie at the root of her research.
This does not mean that Weber-Schnitger abolishes the neo-Kantian separation of facts and
norms; indeed, her conviction that one should not derive norms from facts forms the
backbone of her feminism.
75
The subjugation of woman by man according to her is simply
based on his greater bodily strength, his physiological superiority.
76
It is comical, she adds in
a footnote, that some feminists consider woman's lesser physical force as a result of the
historical relation between men and women: if this were true, the everywhere existing
oppression of women by men could only be explained by assuming the mental superiority of
man !
77
Yet natural differences between man and woman
78
should have no consequences
72
She refers to the theory on the 'group-marriage' as the first social form as to 'Concepts, in which the image of a
liberty of the woman to give herself, according to h e r pleasure, to more men at the same time (?, AvB) regularly
are included.' 'These presuppositions often have been used in the vulgar-socialist as well in the women's
literature for the aim of untenable "development"-constructions, and even are brought up as instances and
examples of a greater sexual "innocence" and "naturalness" by many social reformers who look for new forms
and standards against the harm of modern sexual life.' EuM, p. 8/9. (The idea of 'group-marriage indeed caused
Marx and Engels a lot of trouble: again and again they had to explain that socialism would not mean
collectivization of women). See further concerning 'matriarchy' for instance EuM p. 10 (Morgan), 10/11 (Cunov's
investigation of the Australian 'age groups' which were supposed to be central to matriarchal kinship formations),
15, 59 (Bachofen), 71, 80, 209 + note. Weber does not follow Schnitger's criticism of the concept of 'age groups';
on the contrary, the notion of 'age groups' is central to his concepts of 'military fraternities' and 'the men's house',
which he presents as institutions which created social masculinity, having existed 'everywhere' - as something
comparable to a 'stage of development' of social institutions; see below Ch.4,4 and 5.
See on Weber's standpoint on 'stages of development' Ch. 1,2.
73
According to Van Vucht Tijssen (1987) p. 15 ff. and note 12, she followed her teacher Rickert, whose ideas on
the different character of the natural and the cultural sciences Weber tried to relativize; see on these points B.E.
van Vucht Tijssen (1985), p. 237 ff., 242 ff. ; (1988), p. 156-7.
74
Weber-Schnitger (1919), p. 8.
75
EuM p. 300 (Rousseau), 311 (Fichte).
76
EuM p.17, 18 (by muscular force man protects woman against enemies from outside), 21, 46.
77
EuM p. 17, nt 1.
78
Like all biologist theoreticians, Schnitger mostly uses the singular form. In her view, however, the differences
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