On 24 February 1894 Schreiner married Samuel "Cron" Cronwright, a South African ostrich farmer. Cronwright seemed to share her convictions and encouraged her to continue writing. Schreiner retained her maiden name, and Samuel took the joint surname Cronwright-Schreiner. It is likely that he saw the joint name (and Olive Schreiner's fame) as a potential boost to his career; he worked variously as a farmer, land dealer and estate agent before being elected to the Cape Parliament in 1902. (Certainly Cronwright profited markedly after Schreiner's death, writing an abysmal biography and publishing manuscripts that Schreiner had expressly stated should remain unpublished.)

At the end of December 1895 there was a political crisis in South Africa: Dr Leaner Starr Jameson led a raid into the Transvaal. Within a week 65 the 500 strong Rhodesian police force were dead and Dr Jameson was in jail. Rhodes was heavily implicated in the raid, and he resigned as Cape premier. Schreiner took the raid as a vindication of her stance against Rhodes and incorporated all of her hatred for Rhode's expansionist, imperialist, and capitalistic policies in her latest book, Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland, a somewhat prophetic anti-war allegory. Schreiner and Cronwright travelled to England in 1896 to find a publisher for her latest work.

Returning to Kimberley, Cronwright became more involved with politics, whilst Schreiner's brother Will (currently the leader of the Afrikaner Bond) was elected as prime minister. Cronwright, campaigning for the South African Party, actively concealed his own Party's policy on "Native Africans" and used Trooper Peter Halket in the propaganda war against the Progressive Party (Rhodes contested the Barkly West seat for the Progressives, but lost).

Schreiner's asthma was getting worse, no doubt pushed by Cronwright's continued involvement in politics, and it was decided (by Cronwright) that she should move to Johannesburg - claiming that the increase in altitude (Johannesburg is at approx. 1,763 m) would be good for her health. Money was running out and Cronwright was blaming Schreiner for their financial state - she had not been as productive as he had hoped in her writing.

The Schreiners entered Johannesburg as celebrities, with easy access to its other public figures including President Paul Kruger. The Transvaal government even offered Schreiner an annual annuity of £300, but she turned it down after a rumour was spread that the Transvaal government had paid her to write Trooper Peter Halket (Schreiner believed it was started by Rhodes). Schreiner was convinced that Rhodes would push South Africa into a war in order to regain his previous political power. (Curiously she was convinced that Sir Alfred Milner, the British governor of the Cape and probably the main instigator of the Second Boer War, would not do anything so imperilous.) and thus set about writing An English South African's View of the Situation as an appeal against the impending conflict.

The Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902) devastated Schreiner: her home was looted, her papers destroyed, and she was interned for a year because of her public support of the Afrikaner cause. When Schreiner was finally released she set about reconstructing her notes and began writing her feminist credo Women and Labour (published in 1911) – the book became the feminist "bible" in the early twentieth century.

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