Marianne Weber was a social theorist, sociologist, politician and a key figure in the German women’s movement. In the early Weimar Republic, as a member of parliament and president of the Federation of German Women’s Associations, she fought for equal rights for women in marriage, education, employment and politics. She advocated for women’s access to formerly exclusively male professions, particularly political offices and public administrative positions. She explicitly claimed equal treatment of women and equality in promotions.

She was born on 2 August 1870 in Oerlinghausen, daughter of Eduard Schnitger and Anna Weber, and granddaughter of Karl Weber, the elder brother of Max Weber’s father. In 1873 her mother died and Marianne Weber went to live in the small town of Lemgo with her paternal grandmother and aunt until the age of seventeen.

From 1887 to 1889 she was sent by her grandfather Karl Weber to study in a school in Hannover. In 1892 she moved to Berlin to pursue her studies.
On 20 September 1893 she married Max Weber in Oerlinghausen.

In 1894 the couple moved from Berlin to Freiburg. There Marianne attended, as an auditor, the lectures of the neo-Kantian philosophers Heinrich Rickert and Alois Riehl. She also joined the local women’s movement.

In 1897 Marianne and Max Weber moved to Heidelberg. Marianne became head of the local association for women’s education Frauenbildung–Frauenstudium. In Heidelberg she attended the lectures of the philosophers Kuno Fischer and Paul Hensel.

Fichte’s Sozialismus und sein Verhältnis zur Marx’schen Doktrin, her first work, appeared in 1900, an academic essay discussing a comparison between Fichte’s juridical and political ideas and Marx’s theory.

At the end of the year she became the representative of the association Frauenbildung– Frauenstudium within the Federation of German Women’s Associations. In the meantime, the couple had moved to Italy, where they remained until early 1902.

In 1901 she began contributing to the feminist journal Centralblatt. In 1902 she began contributing to the feminist journal Die Frau.

In 1904 she took part in the International Women’s Congress with two presentations: one on the juridical position of women in marriage, entitled Die historische Entwicklung des Eherechts, and one on women’s participation in science, entitled Die Beteiligung der Frau an der Wissenschaft.

In the autumn of 1904 she accompanied Max Weber on his trip to the United States. Marianne Weber visited women’s colleges and social institutions, meeting among others Jane Addams and Florence Kelley. The trip strengthened her view regarding women’s equality in marriage, equal educational opportunities and equal civil and political rights.

In 1905 she delivered a lecture entitled Beruf und Ehe on the reconciliation of the roles of wife, mother and working woman.

In 1907 she published her landmark work Ehefrau und Mutter in der Rechtsentwicklung.

In 1913 she published the essay Die Frau und die objektive Kultur in the philosophical journal Logos.

In 1918 she joined the German Democratic Party and in January 1919 she became a member of the Baden Parliament, writing a page in the history of democracy: she was the first woman elected to deliver a speech in front of a German parliament. In September she was elected president of the Federation of German Women’s Associations. Her collection of essays Frauenfragen und Frauengedanken was published in the same year.

On 14 June 1920 Max Weber died. Marianne began collecting and reorganizing his writings. The three volumes of Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie were published soon thereafter.

In 1922 she published Max Weber’s collection of essays Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft.

In 1924 the collections Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Soziologie and Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte were published.

In 1926 she published the biography Max Weber. Ein Lebensbild.

In 1928 she edited the collection Die soziale Not der weiblichen Angestellten.

In 1929 she published the essay Die Idee der Ehe und die Ehescheidung and the collection Die Ideale der Geschlechtsgemeinschaft.

In 1935 she published Die Frauen und die Liebe.

In 1946 her book Erfülltes Leben was published.

In 1948 she published her autobiographical Lebenserinnerungen. She died on 12 March 1954 in Heidelberg.