[7] 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.

[9] In America, Marianne met both Jane Addams and Florence Kelley, both staunch feminists and active political reformers [10] 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 her own scholarship, publishing in 1907 her landmark work Ehefrau und Mutter in der Rechtsentwicklung ("Wife and Mother in the Development of Law").

Between 1907 and the start of World War I, Marianne enjoyed a rise in her status as an intellectual and a scholar as 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 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 published many works, 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).

[13] 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.

[14] 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.

Shortly thereafter, Max Weber contracted pneumonia and died suddenly on 14 June 1920, leaving Marianne a widow with four children to raise.

[19] Weber's career as a feminist public speaker ended abruptly in 1935 when Hitler dissolved the League of German Women's Associations.

[citation needed] Weber continued to write during this time, however, and published Frauen und Liebe ("Women and Love") in 1935 and Erfülltes Leben ("The Fulfilled Life") in 1942.

[21] The male-created and male-dominated institutions of law, religion, history and the economy provide a framework for the lives of women, whose autonomy suffers as a result.

Her conclusion was that marriage is "a complex and ongoing negotiation over power and intimacy, in which money, women's work, and sexuality are key issues".

[24] Human work creates cultural products ranging from small, daily values such as cleanliness and honesty to larger, more abstract phenomena like philosophy and language.

[25] Finally, Weber also felt that differences such as class, education, age, and base ideologies, had an enormous effect on the day-to-day existence of women.