ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how modernization affects women's religious lives. In the wake of modernization, women sometimes find new opportunities to participate in what were traditionally men's rituals. The traditional female religious sphere may sometimes acquire new significance or prestige as women come to be seen as guardians of the old ways, as experts in the traditional religion. Most studies that mention women's religion in developing societies stress that when the social support networks of neighbors and kin available to women in traditional rural societies break down, women may join cults or churches as a means of creating new relationships. The domestic nature of the religious experience of Middle Eastern women means that they are in charge of many of the religious symbols and rituals that reach people at the basic or gut level of emotion and childhood memories.
