The Relationship between Prominent Global Religions and Governmental Proceedings, Measured through the Context of Regulations in Women’s Statutory Rights

The pervasive suppression of women’s legal rights as influenced by dominant civic religious practices, even in governments and judicial systems ostensibly defined as secular, is one aspect of social science research that currently lacks adequate subjection to academic scrutiny. The present study posits ten variable measures of women’s rights to serve as binary indicators. Each variable was analyzed by the presence or lack thereof, scored with a 1 or 0 to arrive at a summary score between 0 and 10. This investigation showed that 4 countries held scores of 10, all of which hold no official religion (as in the cases of 12 of the 16 chosen countries). Each other country lacked 1 or more laws that serve to protect inherent female physical, economic, and social rights. These results demonstrate the lack of consistency in governmental secularism’s practice versus legal guarantee, a discrepancy explained by the significant influence of dominant state religions’ attitudes towards women’s rights even in secular government. Further research in this area is necessary to determine an objective methodology to create distinct separation of church and state in both concept and execution