Anneke van Baalen, HIDDEN MASCULINITY, Max Weber's historical sociology of bureaucracy.
Amsterdam 1994. Chapter 2 The Weber's private, sex defined values.
50
therefore promotes the development of ethical values which may serve as a ground for the
adjudging of personality rights to woman; the passions of the man are checked and the
emotional character of the marriage relationship established and refined. In this way 'one of
the great marvels of culture' is created: 'the recognition of the permanent and exclusive
community of life between man and woman, which is demanded by moral consciousness,' 'in
which also the deepest conflicts and the most powerful moral growth have their place.'
93
Moral convictions, however, do not prevent Weber-Schnitger from conscientiously reporting
on cultures where the important and autonomous position of women astonished patriarchal
observers; Herodotus' Lycians
94
and Eyptians
95
, cited by Bachofen, are presented as
examples. According to Weber-Schnitger the causes of the strong position of the Lycian
women, which has been confirmed by inscriptions, are still an enigma; for Egypt the same
applies. She concludes that these peoples have a very long history of which we do not know
anything as yet. At one instance Weber-Schnitger even writes that the historical documents
on them have upset every notion of the 'naturalness of family-patriarchalism'.
96
However,
she does not elaborate on this.
An attempt to discover any social laws in the subjugation of women
97
can be seen in her
emphasis on the 'wholly unmilitary character of the mass of the Egyptian men', which is
caused by a lack of warlike nationalism and the use of professional armies.
98
Her description
of the position of
Germanic women leads her to conclude that the more warlike a society, the lower the
position of woman; although there have been many reports of Germanic women fighting
alongside the men and even of women having to be prevented from bearing weapons in
public by means of legal measures, officially they were not able-bodied and therefore not
allowed to bear weapons; for this reason they could not be associates in law.
99
Another - European - social-economic development she finds is the growth of the population
and the creation of knightly armies
100
, which caused the drafting of men into agricultural
production; according to her this development increased the status of women. In the
medieval cities the men went into craft production as well; and since according to Weber-
Schnitger they possessed a physiologically determined ability to work continuously (because
they lack the 'physical checks' woman suffers), they started to reduce women's work;
nevertheless from that moment the ethical and juridical position of women according to
Weber-Schnitger begins to improve gradually.
Weber-Schnitger's views on the possibilities of improving the ethical and juridical position of
women are combined in a curious way with her ideas on the biological characteristics of men
and women in general and the role of 'drives' and 'instincts' in particular. In her view drives
93
EuM p. 5.
94
EuM p. 56 f.
95
EuM p. 90 f. (108).
96
EuM p. 63.
97
This was later taken up by Weber in ES, see below Ch. 3.
98
EuM p. 108.
99
EuM p. 210; see also below, Ch. 7,5. Schnitger does not confront her criticism of the ancient Germans with her
view that women by their nature, by the possession of organs of reproduction, are weaker than men and unfit for
the struggle of societal life.
100
EuM p. 270/1; Weber presented the creation of feudal armies as a consequence of the growing necessity for
participation of men in agricultural labor, see Ch. 6, 1.
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