Politics & Gender, 11 (2015), 451 477.

Religious Power, the State,

Womens Rights, and Family Law
Mala Htun
University of New Mexico

S. Laurel Weldon
Purdue University

F amily law is an essential dimension of womens citizenship in the

modern state. The rights established in family law shape womens
agency and autonomy; they also regulate access to basic resources
such as land, income, and education that determine a citizens ability
to earn a living independently, among other life chances (Agarwal 1994;
Deere and Leon 2001; Kabeer 1994; Okin 1989; World Bank 2012). Yet
family law is a notorious site of sex inequality, historically and in the
present. Equal rights enjoyed by women in national constitutions are
often contradicted by family and civil codes that subordinate women to
the decisions of their husbands and fathers. In the early 21st century,
family law in a significant number of countries discriminated against
women, denying them the rights held by men and contributing to their
disadvantaged social positions.

Weldon and Htun are equal contributors to all parts of this project. Research was supported by
National Science Foundation SES Grant #0550284. We are grateful for research assistance from
Amanda Burke, Annamarie Calasanti, Jose Kaire, Kimberly Proctor, Crystal Shelton, and our team
from the New School and Purdue and for comments from Aline Coudouel, Jorge Domnguez,
Tazeen Hasan, Jennifer Hochschild, Aaron Hoffman, Juan Pablo Micozzi, Tamir Moustafa, David
Samuels, Denise Walsh, and participants in seminars and panels at the American Political Science
Association, Social Science Historical Association, Law and Society Organization, Indiana
University, the University of Minnesota, UNRISD, the University of Chicago, the University of
Illinois, Purdue University, and the University of New Mexico.
Published by Cambridge University Press 1743-923X/15 $30.00 for The Women and Politics Research Section of the
American Political Science Association.
# The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association, 2015
doi:10.1017/S1743923X15000239

451
452 MALA HTUN AND S. LAUREL WELDON

Why do some countries have family laws that protect womens rights
while others do not? This article analyzes an original dataset of family
law provisions in 70 countries to provide some answers to this question.
Though some scholars have analyzed variation in womens rights in
family law in select groups of countries (see, e.g., Charrad 2001;
Glendon 1987, 1989; Htun 2003; Kang 2010; Moghadam 2003;
Musawah 2009; WLUML 2006), little previous research has attempted a
global analysis of the political, social, and historical conditions associated
with more and less egalitarian family laws.1
We show that the states approach to religion is a major factor shaping the
degree of sex equality in family law.2 Though many other scholars of
gender and politics have emphasized the role that religion plays in family
law (and womens rights more generally) (see, e.g., Blofield 2006;
Charrad 2001; Htun 2003; Kang 2010; Moghadam 2003, 2009; Razavi
and Jenichen 2010; Williams 2006), there is less consensus about what it
is about religion that matters, and why and how it matters. Some
scholars working with a broad cross-national perspective focus on
particular religions, such as Islam or Catholicism (Alexander and Welzel
2009; Castles 1998; Cherif 2010, 1154; Donno and Russett 2004; Fish
2002); others connect gender equality to the degree of religiosity of a
society (Inglehart and Norris 2003). We emphasize the importance of
the institutionalized relations between state and religion, which vary
considerably across countries. Some states deny religion any official role
while others institutionalize its public presence through constitutional
establishment, funding, and enforcement of religious legislation, among
other measures (Fox 2008, 2013).
Our analysis reveals a strong association between the political
institutionalization of religious authority and sex equality in family law. In
countries where political and ecclesiastical power are tightly linked, family

1. Studies of family law have come mostly from comparative legal studies (see, e.g., Esposito and
deLong-Bas 2001; Glendon 1987, 1989; Tucker 2008), a small but growing number of works
concerned with womens rights in restrictive family law regimes of the Global South (e.g., Blofield
2006; Charrad 2001; Htun 2003; Kandiyoti 1991b; Kang 2010; Moghadam 2009; Williams 2006),
and historical analyses (e.g., Cott 2000; Kerber 1998; Fuess 2004; Phillips 1988). Other works have
analyzed more limited aspects of family law in global comparative perspective. Cherif (2010), for
example, conducted a global analysis of determinants of equality in inheritance and nationality law
based on coding of U.S. State Department Human Rights Report and the Citizenship Laws of the
World manual; Hudson, Bowen, and Nielsen (2011) analyzed the relationship between inequitable
family law and violence against women using the Womanstats database (see footnote 17).
2. Other factors are also important, including the experience of communism, Western overseas
colonialism, and strong feminist movements, and we consider them at length elsewhere (Htun and
Weldon 2011). Since the space limitations of this article preclude full consideration of all the
variables associated with the degree of sex equality in family law, we focus here on religious factors.
RELIGIOUS POWER, THE STATE, WOMENS RIGHTS, AND FAMILY LAW 453

law tends to discriminate against women. In the context of a separation of

secular and religious institutions, family law tends to be more egalitarian.
When religion is institutionalized, patriarchal interpretations and
interpreters of family law gain greater authority and more immunity
to contestation. They become increasingly insulated from external
influences and more closely linked to the public status of religion.
Challenges to particular versions of family law are seen as challenges to
the entire church-state relationship. These findings affirm the importance
of examining the relationship between religion and political institutions
(e.g., Gill 1998; Gryzmala-Busse 2012; Katznelson and Stedman Jones
2010) and demonstrate that church-state relations help to shape key
political outcomes such as party systems, the development of the welfare
state, and the extent and nature of social provision (e.g., Castles 1998;
Esping-Andersen 1990; Kalyvas 1996; Kersbergen and Manow 2009;
Lipset and Rokkan 1967; Minkenberg 2002, 2003; Morgan 2006).
We do not argue that any and all religions are patriarchal. Religions are
best understood as multivocal (Stepan 2001): doctrinal interpretations of
womens rights vary within faiths and over time. For example, though state
officials and conservative clerics often invoke Islam to defend patriarchal
laws, most contemporary movements for egalitarian family law in the
Muslim world also present their claims within a religious framework
(Abu-Odeh 2004; Badran 2009; Balchin 2009; Mir-Hosseini 1999, 2006;
Othman, Anwar, and Kasim 2005; Singerman 2005).3 People have
justified practices of sex discrimination and legitimized projects of
gender equality in the name of religion. As this suggests, religious
doctrine is not a thing; it is a site of struggle (Bayat 2007, 4; see also
Hajjar 2004; Mir-Hosseini 2006). We show in this article that the
political institutionalization of religious authority not the hegemony
of a particular religion, the strength of religious beliefs, or the assertion
of spiritual values by a political party is the key religious factor
associated with differences in discriminatory outcomes across countries.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS: FAMILY, THE STATE, AND

FAMILY LAW

The family is foundational to politics. By families, we refer to social units

created by biological or affective ties among people who commonly

3. Scholars of Islamic constitutionalism claim that pluralism originates in earlier traditions but that
citizen contestation over religious law was stymied by the state (Quraishi 2008, 2012).
454 MALA HTUN AND S. LAUREL WELDON

contribute to one anothers economic, moral, and psychological well

being (Minow 1987, 959 60). The earliest political institutions grew
out of family and kin networks (Adams 2005; Weber 1978), and family
relations historically supplied normative models of political authority
(Cott 2000).4 At the same time, politics constitutes the family. Its
definition and boundaries not to mention the roles, relations, and
identities of its members are constituted by political processes and
especially by the modern state (see, e.g., Nicholson 1998; Okin 1989;
Olsen 1985; Rhode 1989). Families do not exist prior to politics; rather,
notions of the family as primordial and prepolitical are the result of
politics.5 Diverse political actors invoke the family to advance their
political agendas, and it is the site of ideological and distributional
battles (Minow 1987; Mohamad 2009; Strach 2006; Thomas 2011).
Family law consists of legal norms governing the formation and internal
relations of these social units. These include rules about marriage and its
dissolution; the respective rights, obligations, and capacities of spouses;
the relationship between parents and children; marital property; child
custody or guardianship; and inheritance. These rules are usually but
not always codified in national civil or family codes and expressed in
judicial decisions. We exclude from consideration the myriad other ways
that modern states affect women and families, including but not limited
to the domain of family policy. Family policy including paid
maternity and parental leave, child care provision, and family allowances
administered through the apparatus of the welfare state has been the
subject of considerable scholarship, particularly in the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries (see, e.g.,
Esping-Andersen 2009; Gornick and Meyers 2003; Morgan 2003;
OConnor, Orloff, and Shaver 1999), but is conceptually and politically
distinct from the family laws codified in civil codes and court decisions.6

4. To be sure, not all political theorists have argued for the alignment of familial and political
authority. This was the subject of Lockes classic response to Filmers identification of monarchical
and patriarchal authority (Locke 1988). Still, many political, legal, and philosophical discourses
identify the family as the basic unit of social and political organization and the primary arena for the
moral development and education of citizens (Hegel 1999; Okin 1989; Rawls 1971).
5. As Butler argues with regard to the subject, it is perhaps most political at the point in which it is
claimed to be prior to politics itself (1995, 47).
6. Questions of family support and social policy are wrapped up in discourses about state spending in a
way that family law is not, while family law tends to raise questions of legal reform and other principles
less directly implied by family policy. We focus on family law here in order to isolate questions of legal
reform from questions of state budgets and labor politics, a distinction that is well established in the
gender and politics and public policy literatures (e.g., Blofield and Haas 2005; Htun and Weldon
2010; Lowi 1964). Consideration of the similarities and differences between these issue types is a
priority for future research but is beyond the scope of the present article.
RELIGIOUS POWER, THE STATE, WOMENS RIGHTS, AND FAMILY LAW 455

By the early twentieth century, family law in most places had come to
uphold male dominance and enforce womens subordination and
dependence. Official codification of social norms and practices tended
to produce patriarchal homogeneity in contexts where a diversity of
family forms and even womens freedoms had flourished (Ahmed 1992;
Dore 2000; Glendon 1989; Tucker 2008). Even the liberal, democratic
states that emerged after the U.S. War of Independence and the French
Revolution explicitly placed women under the authority of their
husbands through institutions such as coverture in the Anglo-American
World and puissance maritale in the Napoleonic Code (Cott 2000;
Glendon 1989; Kerber 1998; Landes 1988; Vogel 1998). During the last
third of the twentieth century, many states began to modify these old
patriarchal models,7 but the process has been uneven. In the first years of
the 21st century, discriminatory provisions persisted in a significant
number of countries. Why do some legal regimes disadvantage women
across many areas while others treat women and men relatively equally
across all, and still others uphold a mix of provisions?

Religion8

Understanding global variation in family law requires a close examination

of the role of religion. Religious traditions and groups have long been
invested in provisions on marriage, inheritance, and parenting. A central
component of most ecclesiastical doctrines, these rules are used to
demarcate the present and future membership of cultural communities.
Sexuality in general, and womens sexuality in particular, features
prominently. By regulating how, when, and with whom women and
men bear children, family law determines who can become a member
of the group and who is responsible for maintaining its values and ways
of life (Shachar 2001). Family law connects the status of individual
women to the construction and maintenance of group cultural identity
(Okin 1999; Razavi and Jenichen 2010; Shachar 2001, 2008).
Religion has the potential to influence family law in myriad ways.
Which aspects matter most? Our primary hypothesis is that state-religion

7. Some states adopted egalitarian reforms earlier, including Sweden in the 1920s and Japan in the
1940s (Morgan 2006; Schmidt 2005).
8. In this article, we define religion as a system of beliefs and practices oriented toward the sacred or
supernatural, through which the life experiences of groups of people are given meaning and direction
(Smith, quoted in Gill 2001, 120). This encompasses the worlds major faiths as well as the spiritual
traditions upheld by smaller cultural groups.
456 MALA HTUN AND S. LAUREL WELDON

relations are the most crucial, though we also test for factors identified in
existing scholarship on religion and public policy, such as religiosity,
confessional/denominational type, and religious parties (see, e.g., Castles
1998; Esping-Andersen 1990; Hagopian 2009; Kahl 2005; Manow 2004;
Manow and Kersbergen 2009; Minkenberg 2002, 2003; Scheve and
Stasavage 2006a,b; Stadelmann-Steffen and Traunmuller 2011).

Religion-State Relations
Contemporary relations between the state and religion reflect historical
patterns of state building. In many countries, new political authorities
attempted to usurp or co-opt the social control exercised by religious
organizations and other subnational groups. These struggles produced
different outcomes. Some institutional arrangements centralized and
imposed secular authority, marginalizing religious doctrines and leaders
from public life. Other states did the opposite: they crafted a special role
for religion, codified ecclesiastical law, and granted privileges to religious
authorities. Still others chose an intermediate route by incorporating
ecclesiastical principles into systems of otherwise secular governance
(Charrad 2001; see also Glendon 1989; Joseph 1991; Kandiyoti 1991b;
Williams 2006). The legacy of these institutionalized relations between
state and religion continue to influence family law and are crucial to
understanding why the degree of equality differs across countries.
Today, there is significant variation in the extent to which state
power grants public status to religious doctrines, symbols, and ideas, with
configurations ranging from virtual fusion (Saudi Arabia) to complete
separation (United States).9 Most states lie between these two extremes,
producing variation in what we call the political institutionalization
of religious authority. At one end of the spectrum, the state enforces
religious education, holidays, and practices, provides funding for
religious institutions, and names ecclesiastical officials, among other
measures (Fox 2008). The public legitimacy of religion in such contexts
tends to promote sacralization, a process in which the primary aspects
of life from family to politics, are suffused with religious rhetoric,
symbols, and rituals (Stark and Iannaccone 1994, 234). Religious
doctrine, rather than public or universal reasons, serves as the normative

9. Many scholars of religion and politics disaggregate two dimensions of state-religion relations:
restriction and favoritism. The former refers to limitations on the practice of religion and religious
organizations, the latter to privileges and subsidies to a particular religion or group of religions
(Driessen 2010; Fox 2008; Grim and Finke 2006; Traunmuller and Freitag 2011). As will be
discussed below, our measure is closer to the favoritism dimension.
RELIGIOUS POWER, THE STATE, WOMENS RIGHTS, AND FAMILY LAW 457

basis of lawmaking (cf. Weber 1978, 226). At the other, secular10 end of the
spectrum, the state maintains a normative basis that is at least formally
independent of religious institutions and doctrine. Public reasons, not
particular religious beliefs, supply the rationale for political decisions
(Creppell 2010, 24 35; Rawls 1993).
Though religious doctrine is not necessarily patriarchal, it was
historically so. Religions can and do change, but the state affects the
timing and pace of this process. State institutionalization of ecclesiastical
doctrine tends to freeze patriarchal interpretations and connect them to
the public status of religion more generally. State intervention enhances
the authority of certain religious interpretations and interpreters,
rendering them less liable to contestation and less exposed to broader
societal influences. Political institutionalization reduces religious
pluralism, suppressing currents of religious thought that are more
supportive of sex equality.11
It can be hard to reform family law in these contexts. Challenges to the
religious interpretations supported by state law come to be seen as
challenges to the entire institutional configuration whereby state power
reinforces religious authority (and vice versa). Family law becomes a
referendum on the role of religion in the polity and on the public and
legitimizing character of religious doctrines. To uphold patriarchal family
law is to defend religions role; to favor egalitarian reforms is to challenge
the historic bargain between church and state. As a result, critics of
family law (and other elements of state power) are often branded as
heretics. The greater the degree of political institutionalization of religion,
the more likely it is that criticism will be suppressed and critics maligned.
For example, Egyptian women who protested sex discrimination in
family law were branded as Western and immoral (Singerman 2005).
Opponents of legal divorce in Brazil in the 1970s criticized proposals for
reform as sinful, and Roman Catholic bishops declared to legislators that
no good Catholic could vote for the bill (Htun 2003). In Israel,

10. Our understanding of secular here is a political one. We refer not to the intensity and pervasiveness
of religious beliefs and practices, but to the political separation of the state from religion. As many
scholars since Marx and Tocqueville have pointed out, political secularization is compatible with a
religious society (Casanova 1994; Gill 2001; Jelen and Wilcox 2002; Katznelson and Stedman Jones
2010; Stark and Iannaccone 1994).
11. Political institutionalization tends to create religious monopolies. Religious officials authorized by
the state seek to protect their position from external and internal challengers. Such monopolies tend to
make religions top heavy and resistant to change, posing a barrier to reformers seeking to update
religious doctrines. This may be why some scholars have found that state involvement depresses
religious vitality (Chaves and Cann 1992; Gill 1998; Iannaccone 1991; Iannaccone, Finke, and
Stark 1997; Stark and Iannaccone 1994).
458 MALA HTUN AND S. LAUREL WELDON

egalitarian reform to orthodox Jewish law has been deemed

inconceiveable for its perceived challenge to the foundations of the
polity and the construction of Jewish identity (Halperin-Kaddari 2003,
228). Malaysian feminists who defended womens rights in the name of
Islam were called traitors, accused of insulting Islam, and deemed not
qualified enough to discuss religious topics (Mohamad 2009; Moustafa
2013; Neo 2003, 70). Zainah Anwar, founder of Sisters in Islam in
Malaysia, claimed that the debate over family law is not so much about
womens rights but about the place of Islam in the public space and the
place of Islam as a source of law and public policy.12
Since political institutionalization links patriarchal family law to the
public status of religion more generally, reforms are difficult, and family
law will remain discriminatory. We propose the following hypotheses:
H1: In countries with official state religions, family law will be less
egalitarian than in polities without official religions.
H2: Family law will be less egalitarian in countries in which the
government endorses religious practices and principles in law.
Institutionalized state-religion relations may not have the same effect
across all contexts, as they are shaped by beliefs and practices in society.
Since previous research has suggested that the degree of societal
religiosity is related to support for womens rights, it is worth exploring its
relationship to the degree of sex inequality in family law. Do religious
beliefs of citizens play into the impact of institutionalized religion?
Religion-State Relations and Religiosity
Inglehart and Norris (2003) found a negative association between
religiosity measured by beliefs in God and attendance at religious
services, among other factors and beliefs about gender equality. This
suggests that citizens and politicians may prefer laws that reflect conservative
religious doctrines on womens family roles. It is not implausible that
religiosity will have some effect on sex inequality in family law, namely, that
H3: Countries with higher degrees of religiosity have less egalitarian
family law.
However, we anticipate that on its own, religiosity will not be as
consequential for womens rights as it is in the context of the fusion of
church and state. The main impact of religiosity may come in the way

12. Interview, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, April 26, 2011.

RELIGIOUS POWER, THE STATE, WOMENS RIGHTS, AND FAMILY LAW 459

that it conditions the effect of state-religion relations on womens rights. In

countries where everyone is a believer, official religious institutions and
doctrinal interpretations are widely perceived as legitimate (Hagopian
2009; Htun 2009). In societies where no one believes in God,
institutionalized religion has less influence over public policy
(Minkenberg 2002). This may be why some studies of family policy and
abortion in Europe argue that religion-state relations have the opposite
effect of the one we describe here. For example, Scandinavian countries
with public, official religions but very low religiosity preside over
Europes most expansive family policies and most liberal abortion
regimes and were early liberalizers of patriarchal family laws. In the
Netherlands, where church and state are institutionally separated but
religiosity is higher, family policies and abortion laws have historically
been more conservative than in Nordic countries (Minkenberg 2002,
2003; Morgan 2006). This suggests that
H4: High degrees of political institutionalization of religious authority
interact with high degrees of religiosity to produce sex inequality in family law.
In our approach, church-state relations are the primary way that religion
is associated with family law. Below, we explain why it is even more
powerful than other avenues of influence charted by scholars, such as
particular religious types and religious parties.
Confessional/Denominational Type
Several studies link particular religions to womens low status. For example,
Muslim-majority countries, particularly in the Middle East and North
African (MENA) region, have attitudes that are relatively unsupportive of
gender equality, fewer women in positions of power, lower rates of
female labor force participation, and discriminatory laws on citizenship
and nationality (Alexander and Welzel 2009; Cherif 2010; Donno and
Russett 2004; Fish 2002; Inglehart and Norris 2003, 2004; Ross 2008).
Some scholarship has associated Catholic countries of Europe with less
feminist policy outcomes in social welfare and abortion policy (Castles
1998; Esping-Andersen 1990; Minkenberg 2003). Government officials
seeking to defend sexist laws and practices have invoked Islam, Judaism,
Hinduism, Catholicism, and indigenous African customs.13

13. For example, Israel referenced respect for religious traditions in its reservations to Article 16 of
CEDAW (Womenwatch 2013). India also introduced reservations to CEDAW for similar reasons
(Sezgin 2009, 2011). In Kenya and Uganda, traditionalists opposed family law reform as inconsistent
with local custom (Baraza 2009; Tripp et al. 2009).
460 MALA HTUN AND S. LAUREL WELDON

In light of the variation in the interpretation and use of religion, however,

it is difficult to attribute causal power to the doctrines of Islam,
Catholicism, or Hinduism. Once institutionalized and codified by
state power, certain versions of religion may be patriarchal, but this owes
to contingent historical factors, not the nature of religion. In fact,
countries dominated by the same religion show varied patterns of family
law. Consider the difference in timing in the legalization of divorce in
Catholic countries in Europe [France (1884), and Ireland (2002)] and
in Latin America, with Mexico legalizing in 1917 while Chile waited
until 2004. Even in 2013, women in Chile lacked equal rights to marital
property. Laws vary across Muslim-majority countries as well: though
many countries remain conservative, Tunisia, Turkey, and Morocco have
embraced egalitarian approaches while others, such as Iran and
Indonesia, have become more discriminatory. We therefore propose the
following:

H5: The political institutionalization of religious authority is more

powerfully associated with discriminatory family law than confessional/
denominational type.

Religious Parties
The other factor to take into consideration is the presence of religious
parties. They have been important actors in debates on family law in
many countries, notably including Italy, Chile, Israel, and India (Clark,
Hine, and Irving 1974; Hagopian 2009; Halperin-Kaddari 2003; Hasan
2010; Htun 2003). Yet the presence of religious parties does not always
correlate with the existence of religious cleavages or otherwise signal the
importance of religious actors in political life (Kalyvas 1996; Minkenberg
2002). Due to the internal evolution of religious doctrine especially
among Christian churches and the potentially moderating effects of
political inclusion (e.g., Schwedler 2011; Wickham 2004), religious
parties do not always oppose family law reform. We therefore believe that
the relationship between religious parties and family will be more
ambiguous than state-religion relations.

H6: The political institutionalization of religious authority will have a

more powerful association with discriminatory family law than the
presence of religious parties in government.
RELIGIOUS POWER, THE STATE, WOMENS RIGHTS, AND FAMILY LAW 461

ANALYSIS

In this section, we test our theoretical propositions about the role of

religion. Our analysis pools four cross-sections of data (1975, 1985, 1995,
2005) into a single dataset encompassing 70 countries.14 Our dependent
variable is measured using a new index of sex equality in family law. The
index assesses formal legal equality in thirteen areas, including marriage,
property, parenting, inheritance, and divorce. Values range from 0 to 13.
The higher the value of the index, the more a countrys legal regime can
be judged to achieve formal equality. (For a detailed description of
the components of the index, see the supplementary materials.) Since
the observations in such a dataset are not independent (for example, the
observed characteristics of Hungary in 2005 may be related to those in
1995), analysts prefer to use techniques designed to take the panel-like
structure of the dataset into account, such as the Random Effects
regression analysis we employ here.15
Our analysis reveals considerable support for hypotheses regarding
variation in the degree of sex equality in family law (see Table 1). The
GLS results, including both within-country and between-country effects,
show that our model performs better at the latter than the former, but
provides insight into both types of variation. Coefficients represent the
average effect of the independent variables on the Family Law Index
when the variable changes both across time and across countries by one
unit. Negative coefficients indicate that a variable is associated with
reduced sex equality (greater discrimination) while positive coefficients
indicate an association with greater equality (less discrimination).

14. For a list of countries included in the analysis, please see the supplementary materials. Though
this set of countries was not selected randomly, there is no compelling reason to think that the
findings discussed here would not be generalizable to other national settings. For those concerned
about selection bias resulting from self-selection of countries, we would note that our cases are not
self-selected. Data about the characteristics of the worlds countries provide some reassurance about
the representativeness of this group of countries in key respects. Our findings should be widely
applicable except perhaps to the handful of most despotic nations. For a discussion of these issues in
panel data more generally, see Wooldridge 2010, and in cross-national studies, see Bauer and
Ameringan 2010; Hug 2003; Jackman 1985; Kohn 1989; Livingstone 2003.
15. The two main panel data analysis techniques are known as fixed effects (FE) and random effects
(RE). FE models absorb the time-invariant differences and drop out those explanatory factors that do not
change over time, making it inappropriate for a study like ours that aims to take into account both
relatively static features (such as religious type) and more dynamic variables (such as feminist
movement strength). RE models are appropriate when it seems that differences across entities have
some influence on the dependent variable, and they can include time invariant variables.
 462
Table 1. Panel regression analysis results

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6 Model 7 Model 8 Model 9 Model 10

State religion 21.73*** 21.50** 0.09

(0.43) (0.50) (0.43)
Religious 20.28*** 20.20*** 20.18*** 20.19*** 20.17*** 20.18*** 0.24 0.20
legislation (0.04) (0.04) (0.05) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.15) (0.14)
Religiosity scale 20.01 20.02 20.00 0.00 20.01 20.01 0.03 0.03
(0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.02) (0.02)
Importance of God 20.59 20.14
(0.51) (0.59)
Religiosity* 20.01*** 20.01**
religious (0.00) (0.00)
legislation
Religious party 0.35

MALA HTUN AND S. LAUREL WELDON

(0.36)
Muslim 22.82*** 22.51** 21.37 21.36 22.07**
(0.83) (0.78) (0.83) (0.84) (0.79)
Catholic 0.57 0.52 0.19 0.17 0.57
(0.45) (0.42) (0.46) (0.47) (0.41)
Strong feminist 0.37
movement (0.26)
Strongest 1.16**
feminist (0.36)
movement
Strong Feminist 0.63* 0.23 0.49 0.07 0.16 0.42 0.41 0.08 0.00
Movement (0.28) (0.34) (0.32) (0.33) (0.33) (0.33) (0.33) (0.33) (0.32)
(lagged)
Strongest feminist 1.45*** 0.96* 1.09* 0.93* 0.85* 0.99* 0.98* 0.86 0.81
movement (0.42) (0.47) (0.45) (0.44) (0.43) (0.43) (0.45) (0.45) (0.42)
(lagged)
 RELIGIOUS POWER, THE STATE, WOMENS RIGHTS, AND FAMILY LAW 463
CEDAW 0.32 1.21 1.08 1.07
ratification (0.24) (0.67) (0.64) (0.65)
CEDAW 20.00 0.34 0.47 0.41 0.41 0.42
ratification (0.23) (0.34) (0.32) (0.33) (0.33) (0.31)
(lagged)
Communist 2.95*** 2.73*** 2.06*** 1.59** 1.87*** 1.77*** 1.50** 1.52** 1.82*** 1.68***
(0.63) (0.68) (0.57) (0.56) (0.53) (0.50) (0.51) (0.55) (0.53) (0.49)
Former Colony 21.36** 21.4** 21.8* 22.82*** 20.96 20.97 22.36*** 22.32** 20.68 20.62
(.53) (.57) (0.57) (0.79) (0.52) (0.52) (0.71) (0.82) (0.54) (0.51)
Women in 0.04** 0.04** 0.06*** 0.04* 0.05** 0.05** 0.04* 0.04* 0.04* 0.04*
Parliament (%) (0.01) (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02)
Democracy 0.09*** 0.10*** 0.14*** 0.04 0.08* 0.10** 0.05 0.05 0.13*** 0.09*
(0.02) (0.02) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04)
GDP (logged) 0.06 0.04
(0.34) (0.34)
Africa 1.82 1.50 1.52
(1.06) (1.04) (1.06)
Asia 22.26** 21.4964 21.5225
(0.86)
Latin America 2.49** 1.79* 1.78*
(0.83) (0.87) (0.89)
Middle East 22.33** 21.3494 21.3746
(0.76)
cons 9.85*** 9.68*** 11.50*** 12.11*** 10.78*** 9.94*** 11.40*** 11.05*** 8.61*** 8.70***
(0.59) (0.67) (0.90) (3.27) (0.85) (0.98) (1.16) (3.29) (1.16) (1.08)
N 277 209 114 114 114 114 114 114 114 114
R-squared 0.54 0.54 0.72 0.81 0.78 0.78 0.82 0.82 0.81 0.72

Note: Coefficients, standard errors in parentheses.

* p , .05, ** p , .01, and *** p , .001.
464 MALA HTUN AND S. LAUREL WELDON

Religious Factors

Our theory expects to find a negative association between the political

institutionalization of religious authority and sex equality in family law.
We measured political institutionalization in two ways: through the
presence of an official state religion and the degree to which the state
upholds religious legislation.16 Religious legislation was adapted from
Jonathan Foxs Religion and the State database (Fox 2008, especially
5455).17 Capturing the ways that political authority upholds religious
principles across multiple spheres (education, diet, dress, political
participation, etc.), it is a count of legislation on religious holidays,
religious education, government funding for religion, blasphemy
laws, religious requirements for public office, and others. The existence
of religious laws in many areas evinces a significant fusion of
ecclesiastical and political authority. The adapted measure covers 37
types of religious legislation, and our countries evince a wide range of
variation, with Saudi Arabia scoring 31 and the United States scoring 1.
The mean is 8 and the SD is 5.8. The establishment of an official state
religion was measured as a dummy variable, available for all four time
points (1975, 1985, 1995, and 2005). Religious legislation was available
for only 1995 and 2005. In order to capitalize on the availability of a
more refined measure and also to use our entire database, we used both
of these measures in our analyses.18
As Figure 1 shows, countries with lower scores on religious legislation
(those where the government adopts fewer religious laws) tend to have
higher scores on the Family Law Index (to be more egalitarian), and
countries with higher scores on religious legislation (where the
government adopts more religious laws) tend to be less egalitarian.
Turning to the generalized least squares (GLS) regression results in
Table 1, the first thing to note is that all of the coefficients for both the
state religion and religious legislation variables are negative (except for

16. In other analyses (not shown) we also used Foxs Government Involvement in Religion (GIR)
variable, which does not perfectly map onto our conceptualization as well as the religious legislation
measure. The results are mostly the same, supporting our claim that the relationships we report here
are robust and not dependent on particular measures.
17. We adapted Foxs index for our purposes by excluding his elements that related to the situation of
women and the family (e.g., personal status defined by clergy, laws on inheritance defined by
religion). See our supplemental materials for more information.
18. In other analyses (not shown) we imputed the missing data to see what difference missing the early
years made. This only strengthened our analysis (available on request).
RELIGIOUS POWER, THE STATE, WOMENS RIGHTS, AND FAMILY LAW 465

the state religion variable in Model 5, which includes all religious variables
for comparison, where some multicollinearity accounts for the reversed
sign). In and of itself, this is an important indicator of the strong
relationship between the political institutionalization of religious
authority and sex inequality in family law. When a country has a state
religion, our models estimated that it will have one to two fewer areas of
equality in family law (out of 13 possible areas), a statistically as well as
substantively significant finding (Models 1 and 2).
Religious legislation, our more refined measure of the political
institutionalization of religious authority, was employed in Models 3 10.
(Since data for this variable were available only for 1995 and 2005,
the N for these models is smaller.) Model 3 predicts that a one
standard deviation change in the score for religious legislation will be
associated with a change in the Family Law Index of 1.6 areas of
inequality (5.8  .28 1.6). This effect held up controlling for region
(Model 4), religiosity (Models 3 10) and for those countries where
Islam was the dominant religion (Models 5 8, 10).
What about the degree of religiosity? We measured societal religiosity
with Inglehart and Norriss strength of religiosity scale. Looking at a
scatterplot revealed that religiosity scale, on its own, was a poor predictor
of sex inequality in family law at high levels of religiosity (not shown). As
Table 1 shows, religiosity scale was not a significant predictor of
inequality on its own in any model. However, since religiosity scale, a
more refined measure, was available only for a subset of our dataset, we
also used a simpler measure the World Values Survey question about
importance of God to explore whether examining religiosity over a
larger span of time and in more countries might better reveal its
effects.19 Our analysis revealed no statistically significant association
between the importance of God and sex inequality in family law (Models
1 and 2).
We hypothesized that the effects of the political institutionalization of
religious authority might vary with the degree of societal support for
dominant religious institutions. To test this hypothesis, we examined the
interaction between religiosity scale and religious legislation and found
support for our argument (Models 9 and 10). Before examining marginal
effects over the whole range of our independent variables, let us first
examine what the coefficients of the constitutive terms tell us.

19. We are grateful to Pippa Norris for suggesting this measure.

466 MALA HTUN AND S. LAUREL WELDON

15
Family Law Index

10

0
0 10 20 30
Religious Legislation Index

FIGURE 1. Family Law Index and religious legislation, 2005.

Constitutive terms are the variables that are part of the interaction
examined but that are also included separately in the model (as is
necessary to explore interaction effects) (Brambor, Clark, and Golder
2005). The coefficient of the constitutive term religiosity in Models 9
and 10 is .03 and .03, respectively, but is not significant. This suggests
that when religious legislation is zero, religiosity has no reliably
predictive effect on sex equality in family law. Similarly, the coefficient
of religious legislation in Models 9 and 10 is also positive but not
significant (.24 and .20, respectively). This suggests that when religiosity
is nonexistent (equal to zero), a fusion between church and state has
little predictable effect on sex equality in family law.
This is a prediction outside the range of actually existing observations,
however, since no country has a complete absence of religious
legislation and zero on the religiosity scale. To analyze the effects of the
political institutionalization of religious authority at different levels of
religiosity, we examined the adjusted predictions of increasing religious
legislation at four different levels of religiosity: religiosity 10, 40, 70,
and 100 (Figure 2).
Our model estimates that at the lowest levels of religiosity, religion-state
fusion could produce gains in sex equality in family law, though this is not a
statistically significant relationship, probably because there are so few cases
RELIGIOUS POWER, THE STATE, WOMENS RIGHTS, AND FAMILY LAW 467

at the high end (see the dark black line in Figure 2, religiosity 10).
In these circumstances, such as Norway and the UK, it could be the
case that the state, in response to democratic demands, may force
reforms in religious doctrine and the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
(Consider, for example, the UK House of Commons approval in 2014
of the appointment of women as bishops to the Church of England.)
Yet as the political institutionalization of religious authority increases in
a context of high religiosity (religiosity 100, the solid gray line), the
effects on equality in family law are negative and dramatic. The steep
decreases in the Family Law Index suggest that the combination of
church-state fusion and a devout population is a potent mix that
obstructs reform of family law to promote sex equality. Egypt, for
example, has one of the highest scores on religious legislation and a 90
on the religiosity scale. Its score on the Family Law Index is 1, one of
the three lowest (least egalitarian) in our entire sample. Even at more
middling levels of religiosity (e.g., religiosity 40, the narrowly spaced
dashed line in Figure 2), or slightly higher religiosity (e.g., religiosity 70,
the more widely spaced dashed line), the effects of religious legislation
are slightly, or even squarely, negative, though less dramatic than at the
highest levels.
Other mechanisms of religious influence on law did not seem nearly as
important as the religious legislation variable, especially in interaction with
religiosity. The presence of a religious party was not significant (Model 5).
Muslim accounts for a significant decrease in sex equality the change
associated with the entire range of the independent variable is at most
2.82 fewer areas of sex equality but the coefficients in Models 5 and 6
may overstate the importance of being in a Muslim-majority country
compared to other models. Yet it is important to note that the change
associated with one SD of religious legislation (less than even the full
range) is more than three times as large, accounting for almost 11 fewer
areas of sex equality (as above).

Other Actors and Contextual Factors

Our model also assessed the association between family law and feminist
movements, the ratification of CEDAW, historical experiences of
communism and Western colonialism, and control variables such as
level of democracy, GDP per capita, share of parliamentary seats held by
women, and world region. Feminist movement strength, entered as a
468 MALA HTUN AND S. LAUREL WELDON

FIGURE 2. Adjusted predictions of equality in family law from religious legislation

at varying levels of religiosity.

factor variable,20 has a small but substantively significant effect in Model 1:

a very strong feminist movement adds about one additional area of sex
equality in family law. Our case studies suggested that feminist
movements might produce change in family law over a longer period of
time as they mobilized allies, raised awareness, and built on international
conventions. In order to test this idea we employed a measure that
lagged feminist movement strength by one time period (a decade). Even
lagged, we still found that the strongest feminist movements added about
one area of sex equality in law (Models 2 10), with stronger effects in
earlier periods. This lagged indicator was significant in about half the
analyses, but further analysis showed that these effects were stronger and
more significant for earlier periods than later ones.
CEDAW ratification is not significantly associated with greater sex
equality in family law, though it approaches significance (or might be
considered significant by some) in later periods. We expected that

20. We show this variable in the table entered as a factor variable, which treats each value as a category,
to show the distinct effect at different levels of feminist movement strength. Analyses treating the variable
as a continuous variable (not shown), entered simply as a regular variable, similarly found a significant
effect of a strong feminist movement, and a substantively important effect at the highest levels of
strength.
RELIGIOUS POWER, THE STATE, WOMENS RIGHTS, AND FAMILY LAW 469

communism, because it promoted an ideology of formal sex equality and

marginalized religion, would create a legacy of sex equality in family law.
In our analysis, the effect of communist is positively and significantly
associated with sex equality in all 10 models. Former colony a dummy
variable indicating the experience of Western overseas colonialism is
associated with greater inequality in family law. The coefficient is
negative across all ten models and statistically significant in more than
half of them (Models 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8). We interpret this somewhat less
robust finding as confirmation of the pervasiveness of efforts to build
national identity around sexist family law in postcolonial societies, efforts
which frequently but not always were inspired by the political
institutionalization of religious authority (see, e.g., Charrad 2001; Kabeer
1991; Najmabadi 1991; Razavi and Jenichen 2010; Tucker 1998;
Williams 2006).
We found that women in parliament had a statistically significant effect
on sex equality in family law that was fairly consistent in size, if very small,
regardless of specification and other model variations. While women in
parliament might prevent rollbacks, they tend not to be major instigators
of family law reform, a finding that has also been suggested by research
in other areas of womens rights (cf. Weldon 2011). Democracy has a
statistically significant relationship to family law when examined over
three or four decades (Models 1 and 2), but this effect is less robust in
the analysis focusing on 1995 and 2005 (Models 3 10). Regional
dummy variables were inconsistently significant. While significant in
some models (4), most faded from significance when we controlled for
religion and national wealth (GDP) (Models 7 and 8). Unlike some
other policy issue areas where regional activist networks were very
influential, such as violence against women (Htun and Weldon 2012),
we found little evidence of regional effects in either the qualitative or
quantitative data.

CONCLUSION

This article demonstrated a powerful association between sex

discrimination in family law and the political institutionalization of
religious authority. When state power and religious power are fused,
particularly in highly devout societies, it is difficult to reform family law
toward greater equality, and patriarchal norms endure. Qualitative
evidence suggests that, in these contexts, patriarchal family law becomes
470 MALA HTUN AND S. LAUREL WELDON

linked to the public status of religion. Feminist movements and secular

activists have a hard time demanding reform without questioning the
historical arrangements between church and state. Their challenges to
patriarchal family law come to be seen as threats to the entire apparatus
of state and religious authority, often reanimating older struggles over the
boundaries and nature of the state-religion relationship. Ecclesiastical
hierarchies defend discriminatory family law in order to protect their
broader institutional privileges and normative legitimacy. Whereas
international norms and transnational movements have helped compel
progressive national policy making on gender issues such as violence
against women, participation in decision making, and workplace
equality, family law has a greater tendency to remain sealed off from
political contestation and external influences.
Religion is important to understanding family law, but not in the ways
often depicted in scholarly literature (especially cross-national statistical
analysis). Previous work has a tendency to single out Muslim-majority
countries and religious societies as environments conducive to legal sex
discrimination. Instead, we focused on the institutionalized fusion of
religious and political authority and the rigidities this introduces into both
religious and state law. The key factor associated with discriminatory family
law is not any particular religion, the degree of religiosity, or the presence
of religious parties, but the institutional role states have crafted for religions
and the frequent presence of these structures in Muslim-majority polities.
Religion is a field of contestation. Religious beliefs can be deployed for
multiple causes, and religious actors have assumed conservative and
progressive stances on social issues such as family law as well as human
rights, poverty, social insurance, and democratic governance (see, e.g.,
Casanova 1994; Gutierrez 1973; Hagopian 2009; Mainwaring 1986;
Scheve and Stasavage 2006b). Depending on the institutional and
political environment in which they are embedded, religious actors from
the same denomination may behave in different ways. Brauns work on
the role of religious rescue networks during the Holocaust in the
Netherlands and Belgium shows that Catholic and Protestant churches
behaved in opposite ways depending on whether they were the majority
or minority religion. It was not Catholicism or Protestantism per se that
shaped the behavior of religious communities toward Jews, but their
institutionalized status as religious minorities (Braun, n.d.).
Religion can and has been repurposed as a force for sex equality in family
law and other areas of social life, but this is harder to accomplish when the
state props up particular religious interpretations and actors. Equality
RELIGIOUS POWER, THE STATE, WOMENS RIGHTS, AND FAMILY LAW 471

advocates should seek not to marginalize religion or erase its influence

from the polity, but to de-link religious power from state power. Though
religions in civil society are not always egalitarian or progressive, they are
compelled to be responsive in order to remain relevant (Gill 1998,
2001). The state, not religion, thwarts advances in womens rights.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.

org/10.1017/S1743923X15000239

Mala Htun is Professor of Political Science at the University of New

Mexico, Albuquerque, NM: malahtun@gmail.com; S. Laurel Weldon is
Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for
Diversity and Inclusion at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, IN:
weldons@purdue.edu

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