As we celebrate the 200th birthday of the godfather of evolution, Charles Darwin, mankind still looks to religion for answers that his theories have tangibly brought fourth. Statistically speaking however, womankind is even more likely to believe and pass on religious dogma, which presents a logical dichotomy given that they're the gender most oppressed by their faith.

Following on from her previous article on The Evolution of Religion, R. Elisabeth Cornwell explores the evolutionary reasons why women endure and pass on the bondage of belief.



Why Women Are Bound to Religion: An Evolutionary Perspective

R. Elisabeth Cornwell, PhD

Religion has both revered and reviled women, exalting their fertility and fearing their sexuality. While religions throughout history have mutated, gone extinct, and propagated -- the position of women within their ever expanding reach has usually fared poorly. Yet, women are far more likely to be religious, attend religious services, and inculcate their children with their beliefs*. Why are women so willing to give in to religious dogma and subject themselves to the degradations often inflicted upon them? This is a fascinating question, and is especially perplexing when you consider the great strides toward equality women have gained in the West. Yet, without women passing on faith, belief, and dogma, religion could not survive through the generations.

The answers we seek shall neither come easily nor be all-encompassing. As with all things psychological, we must account for individual differences, culture, family, friends, media and politics. However, we can begin to unravel the mystery of why women willingly submit to male domination through religious hierarchies by examining our most evolved psychological adaptations. While it is not possible to cover all the details necessary to treat such a vast and complicated subject, I hope to tease you into considering ideas that challenge long-held assumptions.

Sexual Selection: Why Men and Women Differ

In case it has escaped your notice (or fallen foul of your political sensibilities), men and women differ. In terms of our physical differences, women on average are smaller, weaker, more gracile, and distribute fat differently. There are a number of physical secondary sexual characteristics, that is, characteristics that are not necessary for reproduction but differ between the sexes, some of which are obvious such as more muscular development in men and exaggerated breast development in women**. Other characteristics are more subtle; For example, women have fuller lips, larger eyes, and smaller chins on average than men. These characteristics are mediated by hormones, largely testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone.

But the physical characteristics we can see are not the only differences that come about because of hormones. Our brains are awash in hormones throughout our fetal development, during our childhood, and then the familiar (some might say ominous) surge during adolescence. As adults, our hormones still continue to affect us and as we age, the waning of hormones affects us as well.

It is because of hormones that male and female brains differ. While there is no evidence for differences in intelligence (as was believed in the nineteenth century and on into the twentieth - women were not even allowed to vote until 1920!), to deny that differences exist is simply wishful thinking. Evolution cares nothing for either misogyny or feminism; it cares not for what is moral or immoral, just or unjust: without caring at all, it builds survival machines to carry genes into the next generation.

But what has this to do with religious beliefs among women? Quite a bit actually. When we look at some of the behavioral and psychological differences between women and men, we can glimpse some of the adaptations necessary for our ancestors' survival. What makes humans human is our large brains, and in order for our brains to develop, evolution had to 'intervene'; Ancestral women had to develop a wider pelvis to allow the large head of a newborn through the birth canal. Another way to facilitate and accommodate big brains was to give birth to premature infants. This is why human neonates are so helpless compared to all other primates.

As hominid brains grew in size and complexity, so too did the need for extended childhood, late-onset reproduction, and extended life-span. The vulnerability of infants and children would have led our ancestral females to select mates who were more likely to stay around, as well as to rely heavily on support from the group. Women would have relied on close female relatives to provide both emotional and practical support. Males within the group would have provided protein and defense against invading males. It was not only a woman's individual survival that was dependent on the group, but more importantly it was essential to the survival of her offspring. In other words, the future of her genes.

With this in mind, we can begin to understand why it is so essential for women to fit into their social group. Exclusion would have meant extinction since those women who could not live in accord with the other members of their group would have had fewer or no descendants. Thus, the evolutionary pressures that shaped the need to live in harmony with the group pressed more strongly on women than on men. This is not to suggest that there were not strong evolutionary pressure for males, too, to conform, indeed there were. However, males who risked upsetting the status quo and did so successfully would have gained an advantage in their own reproductive success. Females who tried the same would not.

Before going on, I need to go touch on a rather obvious but extremely important element of male/female differences: unequal reproductive success. This simply means that men are capable of producing a far greater range of offspring than women. Reproductive success of the average male equals that of the average female. But the most successful male is far more successful than the least successful male, and than any female. Males can hold harems (which means that some males never reproduce at all). Females cannot hold harems - or at least there would be no point in their doing so. Sperm is cheap, wombs are costly and gestation time consuming. Women are limited in the number of offspring they can produce, while men, feasibly, could sire thousands of infants if only they could find willing partners. Thus, where women tend to range between 0 and 5 offspring, men can range from 0 to double digits (and beyond!). This very simple fact makes it far more advantageous for men to risk everything, including social exclusion and death, if there is a chance they can gain sexual access to a substantial number of women. However, women gain very little by risking it all, since they cannot increase their ability to have more offspring by increasing their number of sexual partners. Women therefore would have been under much stronger evolutionary pressures to 'play it safe' and remain with the status quo. Let the man take the risks, and if he succeeds choose him as a sexual partner.

Religion and Cultural Norms

It is not my purpose here to discuss the relationship between religion and culture, but I will suggest that, for as long as written history has existed, cities, states, and empires have enlisted the help of religious leaders, and religious leaders have relied on the protection of the state. This is true of all the major religions of today, with no exception.

Religion is a human invention, the gods and goddesses that have come and gone during our short history have all displayed the best and (more often) worst human traits. They fell in love, jealousy was common, revenge, anger and trickery prevailed, the struggle for power was universal, and all could be brought to folly and woe due to excessive hubris, greed, and lust. Soap operas pale in comparison! What concerns me, though, is that religion reflected the culture of the times - and, for better or worse, the religions most prominent today are all rather ancient beasts that grew out of a time when women were subservient to men, and often considered as property to be bartered, battered, and controlled.

So we are back to our original question: Why do women today continue to fall victim to an archaic system of beliefs that foster misogynistic behavior? Why are women even more likely to be religious than men? The simple answer is that it is safe. Please don't take this as a slight against women -- it isn't. Male/female differences exist, but I'm certainly not suggesting that risk taking is a better option than playing it safe. After all, women are less likely than men to die doing incredibly stupid things (check out the Darwin Awards it is nearly exclusively male 'winners'). But the fact that women are less likely to push the status quo for fear of social exclusion and even retribution makes a lot of evolutionary sense.

I acknowledge that some women have in fact taken extraordinary risks and have paid the ultimate price. And I am not saying that the majority of men will risk everything in order to achieve a particular goal. But we are looking at general trends, and men overall take more risks.

Religion and Kinship

Religion creates the illusion of kinship, and kinship is crucial to a woman's reproductive success. Even today, single mothers (and fathers) who receive support from family often avoid many of the pitfalls that single parents without support endure. Family support reduces stress through emotional support as well as practical support, and throughout the last 100,000 years would have been a critical factor in raising an infant to reach reproductive age.

The instant support group that religious institutions offer remains today. Churches, synagogues, temples, mosques offer immediate female fictive kin (assumed family). Raising a child, with or without a partner, is a difficult and daunting task. Women, especially new mothers, seek out other women for advice, encouragement, and support. Certainly, women who were raised with a religious upbringing would be more likely to become dependent on these intimate social relationships with other women. This inter-dependency taps into deep psychological needs, and being excluded from it would trigger a very primal fear response.

In order for women to abandon religion and its securities, there needs to be something tangible to replace the support that it offers. This is especially true in small and/or insular communities where one could face being shunned by family and friends. And in some parts of the world, abandonment of belief would bring a death sentence to be carried out by family members. Women traditionally have had the strongest ties to family compared to men: thus breaking those ties will be more difficult and more psychologically painful. While nobody has done a specific study of atheism and women, it is easy to guess that those women who have been raised in more traditional religious homes, with family and religion closely tied together, are most likely to fear of rejection and isolation if they announce their lack of faith. Some manage to break through, but not without significant loss. Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book, Infidel, shows the strength and courage it takes to leave one's faith and family. The psychologist Jill Myton also reveals not only her own struggles against religious indoctrination, but also documents the struggles of others who left one of the most secretive and exclusive religious cults in the West (see interview).

Humans have the capacity to show great strength, courage and integrity. Sometimes we need just a little push, to encourage us to question those ideas and long-held beliefs we hold most dearly. It is threatening to question not only our own beliefs, but those of our family and friends. We feel safe, even in falsehoods, as long as others believe the same. In order for women to move on from the archaic falsehoods of religion, dialogs need to be opened and our most intimate fears revealed. Women can abandon the tyranny of religion, but it will take courage - the same sort of courage that won women the right to vote, the right to work, and the right to steer their own destiny.


*Sources:

1. The Harris Poll: The Religious and Other Beliefs of Americans 2003.
2. Argyle & Beit-Hallahmi (1975). The social psychology of religion. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
3. Francis & Wilcox (1996) Religion and Gender Orientation. Personality and Individual Differences, 20, 119-121.

**Other mammals do not display exaggerated breast development, and it is not necessary for lactation.


Special thanks to Andy Thomson for sharing ideas about this topic.

R. Elisabeth Cornwell is an Assistant Professor of Research at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Her research includes work in the area of hormones, pheromones, and sexual selection in humans. Her most recent paper can be found in Animal Behavior, regarding evidence in support of various theories of mate selection in humans. Most recently her work has involved differences between theist and atheists on a variety of psychological profiles.