Anneke van Baalen, HIDDEN MASCULINITY, Max Weber's historical sociology of bureaucracy.
Amsterdam 1994. Chapter 3 Private versus public sphere: the origins of household and kin group.
Gestrigen")'; according to him this belief 'is rooted in fixed attitudes'
6
, but originally also in
'the fear of undefined magical evils which might befall an innovator or an approving group
7
who violate the interests of the spirits'.
'Tradition' here is identical to the belief in the inviolability of custom, which in Weber's view
does not necessarily imply the existence of any form of domination.
8
According to Weber,
however, 'patriarchal domination' is a combination of 'piety toward tradition and toward the
master'.
9
'Traditional domination' therefore is only partly based on 'tradition'; its other
element is 'piety towards the master', which results from 'a common upbringing'. Weber
therefore has to explain the individual, masculine element by which he transformed the
'traditional social order' into 'patriarchal domination'. He does this in his discussion of the
matriarchy theory in the essay in which he discusses household, neighborhood, kin group,
enterprise and oikos
10
and in that on 'the nature and origin of patriarchal domination'
11
.
2. Weber on matriarchy
Weber's criticism in ES of the 'matriarchy' theory is complex. It is not very clear which of the
theories on the 'matriarchy' he discusses. He nowhere criticizes the socialist 'matriarchy'
theory as a whole; it is in fact very difficult to decide whether he is attacking only Bachofen or
also Morgan and Engels. It is clear, though, that he intends to give his own, consistent view
on the origins and development of the first social relations which is not just a summary of
Weber-Schnitger's argument in Ehefrau und Mutter.
He neither wants to fall back on the pre-Bachofen idea of the eternal existence of the
modern patriarchal family, which is based on a formally monogamous marriage, where the
children born to the wife are assumed to be begotten by the husband
12
. According to him the
assumption that marriage is the first, the 'original', social relation, is not borne out by facts.
13
Viewed historically marriage proper is a late institution which developed even later than that
6
see also ES p. 29, WG p. 15: 'If an orientation toward social action occurs regularly, it will be called "usage"
(Brauch) insofar as the probability of its existence within a group is based on nothing but actual practice. A usage
will be called a "custom" (Sitte) if the practice is based upon long standing.'
7
'die soziale Gemeinschaft, die sein Tun billigt'.
8
See ES p. 213, WG p. 123: 'Not every claim which is protected by custom or law should be spoken of as
involving a relation of *domination.'
9
ES p. 1008, WG p. 582.
10
WG Kap. III, Typen der Vergemeinschaftung und Vergesellschaftung in ihrer Beziehung zur Wirtschaft, p. 212
ff., ES p. 356 ff...; the translators omitted the title of this chapter and broke Weber's chain of concepts by making
a separate chapter out of Weber's discussion of the impact of (masculine) economic, military and political groups
on the household collective; see below no. 5.
11
ES p. 1006 ff., WG p. 580 ff.
12
Unless the husband follows the complicated procedure for denying fatherhood.
13
'The relationships between father, mother and children, established by a stable sexual union, appear to us
today as particular *"original" ("urwüchsig") relationships. However, separated from the household as an unit of
economic maintenance, the sexually based relationship between father and children are wholly unstable and
tenuous. The father relationship cannot exist without a stable economic household unit of father and mother;
even where there is such a unit the father relationship may not always be of great import', ES p. 356/7, WG p.
212. 'The concept of marriage can be defined only with reference to other groups and relationships besides
these. Marriage as a social institution comes into existence everywhere only as an antithesis to sexual
relationships which are not regarded as marriage', ES p. 357, WG p. 213.
54
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