Marianne Weber (born Marianne Schnitger; 2 August 1870 – 12 March 1954) was a German sociologist, women's rights activist, and the wife of Max Weber.
Marianne Schnitger was born 2 August 1870, in Oerlinghausen, Germany, to medical doctor, Eduard Schnitger, and his wife, Anna Weber. Her mother was the daughter of a prominent Oerlinghausen businessman, Karl Weber.
Much of Marianne's childhood was characterized by poverty and hardship. After the death of her mother in 1873, she moved to Lemgo and was raised by her grandmother and aunt for the next fourteen years. During this time, both her father and his two brothers were institutionalized.
Marianne received her primary education at home and through the local village school. When she turned 16, Karl Weber, her grandfather, sent her to finishing schools in Lemgo and Hanover, from which she graduated when she was 19. After the death of her grandmother in 1889, she began living with her mother's sister, Alwine, in Oerlinghausen.
In 1891, Marianne began spending time with the Charlottenburg Webers, Max Jr., and his mother, Helene. She became very close to Helene, who she would refer to as being "unaware of her own inner beauty." Helene opened up to Marianne about the domestic abuse she endured during her marriage, which later inspired many of Marianne's works. Her cousin, Max Weber, formally courted her, and in 1893, they got married in Oerlinghausen. After their marriage, they moved into an apartment in Berlin to pursue academic careers.
In the first few years of their marriage, Max taught in Berlin, and then at the University of Heidelberg. Meanwhile, Marianne pursued her own studies. After moving to Freiburg in 1894, she studied with a leading neo-Kantian philosopher, Heinrich Rickert.
In 1895, she began engaging in the women's movement after hearing prominent feminist speakers at a political congress. In 1896, she co-founded a society for the circulation of feminist thought in Heidelberg. She worked with Max to raise the level of women students attending the university.
In 1898, Max suffered a psychological collapse after his father's death, happening shortly after an argument in which he confronted him about his abuse of Helene. Between 1898 and 1904, Max withdrew from public life, moving in and out of mental institutions, traveling compulsively, and resigning from his prominent position at University of Heidelberg. While Max worked toward recovery, Marianne cared for him and attended political meetings on his behalf. She published her first book in 1900: Fichtes Sozialismus und sein Verhältnis zur Marxschen Doktrin ("Fichte's Socialism and its Relation to Marxist Doctrine").
In 1904, the Webers toured America. Marianne met Jane Addams and Florence Kelley, both staunch feminists and active political reformers. Also during that year, Max re-entered the public sphere, publishing, among other things, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Marianne also continued to curate her own scholarship, publishing her landmark work Ehefrau und Mutter in der Rechtsentwicklung ("Wife and Mother in the Development of Law") in 1907.
In 1907, Karl Weber died, and left enough money to his granddaughter for the Webers to live comfortably. During this time, Marianne first established her intellectual salon. Between 1907 and the start of World War I, Marianne enjoyed a rise in her status as an intellectual and a scholar. She published "The Question of Divorce" (1909), "Authority and Autonomy in Marriage" (1912) and "On the Valuation of Housework" (1912), and "Women and Objective Culture" (1913). While the Webers presented a united front in public life, as Max defended his wife from her scholarly detractors, Max was purportedly having an affair with Else Jaffe, a mutual friend.
In 1914, during the start of the war, Max busied himself publishing his multi-volume study of religion, lecturing, organizing military hospitals, serving as an adviser in peace negotiations, and running for office in the new Weimar Republic, Marianne continued adding to her list of publications, among which were: "The New Woman" (1914), "The Ideal of Marriage" (1914), "War as an Ethical Problem" (1916), "Changing Types of University Women" (1917), "The Forces Shaping Sexual Life" (1919) and "Women's Special Cultural Tasks" (1919).
In 1918, Marianne Weber became a member of the German Democratic Party and, shortly thereafter, the first woman elected as a delegate in the federal state parliament of Baden. In 1919, she assumed the role of chairwoman of the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine (League of German Women's Associations), an office she would hold until 1923.
In 1920, Max's sister, Lili Weber, suddenly committed suicide. Together, Max and Marianne adopted her four children. This provided Marianne some solace from Max's affair. Shortly thereafter, Max Weber contracted pneumonia and died on June 14th,1920, leaving Marianne a widow with his sister's four children.
Following Max's unexpected death, Marianne withdrew from public and social life, funneling her physical and psychological resources into preparing ten volumes of her husband's writing for publication. In 1924, she received an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Heidelberg, both for her work in editing and publishing Max's work, as well as for her own academic achievements. Between 1923 and 1926, Weber worked on Max Weber: Ein Lebensbild ("Max Weber: A Biography"), which was published in 1926. Also in 1926, she re-established her weekly salon, and spoke publicly to audiences of up to 5,000. During this phase, she continued to raise Lili's children with the help of a close-knit circle of friends.
Marianne Weber in Nazi Germany
Weber's career as a feminist public speaker ended abruptly in 1935 when Hitler dissolved the League of German Women's Associations. She continued to hold her weekly salon until the Allied Occupation of Germany in 1945. While criticisms of the Nazi party were sometimes subtly implied, she told interviewer Howard Becker in 1945 that "we restricted ourselves to philosophical, religious and aesthetic topics, making our criticism of the Nazi system between the lines, as it were. None of us were the stuff of which martyrs were made." Weber claimed, however, to know people who had been involved in the July Plot.
Weber continued writing, and published Frauen und Liebe ("Women and Love") in 1935 and Erfülltes Leben ("The Fulfilled Life") in 1942.
After World War II ended, Marianne began writing her own memoir. On 12 March 1954, she died in Heidelberg.