Anneke van Baalen, HIDDEN MASCULINITY, Max Weber's historical sociology of bureaucracy.
Amsterdam 1994. Chapter 4 Relations between men: from routinization of charisma to patriarchal
domination over men.
66
Chapter 4. Relations between men: from routinization of charisma to patriarchal
domination over men
1. Introduction. Weber's reverse representation of the origins of legal patriarchy - 66
2. 'Charisma' as a personal characteristic - 67
3. The appropriation and production of charisma - 70
4. Routinization and monopolization of charisma. Charismatic education. Transformation
of charisma into group membership - 71
5 Proofs of manhood and the reversal of the burden of proof; monopolization of
masculinity by warrior fraternities - 72
6. The men's house - 75
7. From the men's house to legal patriarchy: from warrior fraternity by plutocratization of
charisma to status group and caste - 78
8. Positive and negative status honor; masculine and feminine values - 82
9. Caste and ethnic segregation - 84
10. Property of land and people: military caste and patriarchal 'familia' - 85
11. The 'oikos' as an economic conceptualization of the formal patriarchal household - 87
1. Introduction. Weber's reverse representation of the origins of legal patriarchy
Weber constructed a second ideal type of 'patriarchal domination', based on its legal
definition: as a social formation determined by 'patrilineal
descent and exclusively agnatic attribution of kinship and property'¹. I have called it 'legal
patriarchy' to differentiate it from the 'traditional' type of 'patriarchal domination', which
according to Weber had its roots in the 'masculine authority over the household'. In my
interpretation the ideal-type of 'traditional patriarchal domination' was constructed by Weber
by performing a series of conceptual manipulations on the patriarchal household authority of
his time, which he projected back into prehistoric times.
The type of patriarchy Weber defined in juridical terms can be shown to be constructed in a
comparable way. Since in historical times it was defined in terms of 'descent' and 'property',
Weber connected it to the emergence of a concept of masculine property, in particular of
land, which in agricultural societies - gathering societies do not know the concept - had been
the property of the women who worked on it. This concept of masculine property according
to him was connected to military conquest of land by 'members of a military caste living
dispersed in the countryside' and 'empire-building peoples'.² These military castes and
'empire-building peoples' are the links in the chain between 'legal patriarchy' and Weber's
concept of 'charismatic domination'.
In this chapter I will present my interpretation of Weber's construction of the development of
legal patriarchy. In my view he makes this construction by projecting back into prehistory a
particular characteristic of legal patriarchal relations between men: the phenomenon that
only the patriarch is a 'real man', while other men are treated as women or children. He does
1
ES. 371, WG p. 223.
2
Ibid.
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