Introduction

Callum Brown has recently argued that by withdrawing their support for institutional Christianity and cancelling what he calls their ‘subscription to [its] discursive domain’ women have accelerated the inexorable decline of a centuries-old religious culture and moral consensus in Britain. He claims that in recent centuries Christianity in all its many and various manifestations attracted more female adherents than male so that their demonstrable flight from the churches since the 1960s has resulted in a dramatic drop in attendance at worship as they, the erstwhile most pious and most diligent members of all denominations, appear no longer to find relevance in Christian teachings and ritual.1

By so forcefully inserting women into the long-standing meta-narrative of secularisation - however that may be defined, and whether, indeed, it may be defined at all - Brown has added a further dimension to an already complex web of explanations for the quantifiable falling off in traditional British religiosity. His argument that a similar pattern of religious decline may be observed throughout most of western Europe is one with which many commentators would agree, even if they are willing to concur only cautiously, if at all, with his explanation of its causes. But the religious landscape of both Britain and Continental Europe has been enriched by more than one belief system, and it may be argued that as institutional Christianity has suffered a reduction in importance, some of the territory it has abandoned has been taken over by other religions and quasi-religions. The search for the numinous may not have been forsaken to the same extent as has loyalty to ancient traditions and institutions. It may also be seen in a wide variety of guises, including, for example, the rise of so-called New-Age movements, strongest in Europe and Britain, where Christianity is weakest. A particular example of the employment of presumed supernatural agents in attempts to understand and manage life’s events may be seen in France, which has witnessed both a steady decline in church attendance and the emergence of as many as 40,000 professional fortune tellers. Can that transfer of function from a traditional to an unorthodox resource be described as secularisation? And, it may also be asked, to what extent is the cult of celebrity, so prominent a feature of European contemporary life, an attempt to fill a gap in human psychological experience? To take just one example,

Is it accurate to describe the phenomenon characterised at the time by the Independent newspaper as ‘recreational mourning’ at the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, a ‘spiritual’ one, as has so often been suggested? If such phenomena as fortune-telling and personality cults increase in the face of a decline in formal cultic practice, might it not be suggested that they represent a popular reaction to an increasingly irreligious culture and express an unmet psychological, emotional or spiritual need?

The term ‘secularisation’, therefore, may sometimes slip off the tongue too easily without the necessary careful nuancing. But, although it evades the imposition of a generally agreed definition, it remains a convenient shorthand for the decline in traditional religious belief and observance. Combined with the rapidly changing patterns of social organisation and shifting institutional loyalties that characterise most of Europe at the beginning of the twenty-first century, it prompts a number of questions for those interested in the history of women and religion. How did we get to this point? What effect, if any, has this process had on women? And what effect have women had on the process?

Most commentators would argue that the move away from conventional religious sentiment and practice is no new phenomenon but something that has been proceeding steadily over the past three hundred years, although it has accelerated during the past fifty. Many feminists have identified religion as a critical factor, perhaps the most critical factor, in the fostering of patriarchy and in the disadvantaging of women in relation to men, and have welcomed the benefits that decreasing adherence to some belief systems has brought. And if, as Hugh McLeod has reminded us, secularisation may be used as a catch-all description of the way in which modernisation has occurred in western Europe, then its close relationship to the increasing autonomy and opportunity for women that characterises the period, particularly the second half of the twentieth century, comes as no surprise.2 But that still leaves unanswered a fundamental question: if religion has been so detrimental to women, why is it that during the past three centuries of European history, Christianity has continued to attract so many more female adherents than male? Even as recently as the 1990s, in a period of rapid decline in conventional observance in France, when fewer than 70 per cent of the population declared themselves to be Catholic and fewer than 10 per cent were observant, it has been estimated that women accounted for 75 per cent of the active membership of the Roman Catholic church.3 In the same period, even churches that claimed to have reversed the trend towards decline and to have recruited new members exhibited a similar membership pattern. Male leaders of the Black-led, generally charismatic, evangelical churches in Britain have admitted that the percentage of women in their congregations ranged between 65 and 95 per cent of the whole.4

This chapter will consider some ways in which women have experienced religious traditions, practices and institutions during the past three hundred years, noting aspects that have been impugned as disadvantageous to women as well as those features of religious observance that women have found emotionally and intellectually satisfying. It will also attempt to assess the changes that have occurred in women’s commitment. Although issues specific to Christianity will form the major part of our discussion, consideration will also be given to aspects of other numerically significant religions that have played an important part in the evolution of European culture and society, particularly Judaism and Islam. We will consider these within the chronological framework adopted in this book, but there will inevitably be some untidiness around the edges as developments spread themselves across our artificially imposed boundaries. This also means that our consideration of Islam in Europe will be confined almost entirely to the twentieth century. Within each period, three main themes will form the basis of the discussion: women for whom religion informed their way of life, whether or not this was lived within community; women in their domestic situations and the expectation that their role should be confined to the home and family; and women and their relationships with religious institutions, particularly those aspects of institutional organisation that sought to restrict female participation. As well as their exclusion from participation in cultic practices, consideration will be given to their propensity to feature in religious discourse as temptresses or as beings particularly susceptible to temptation.