ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the religious and secular normative cultures from a gendered perspective. From a gendered perspective there are similarities between monotheistic religions and societies, but there are also similarities between religious, monotheist societies and European secular societies. The distinction between public and private realms arose out of a double movement in modern political and legal thought. On the one hand, with the emergence of the nation-state and theories of sovereignty in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, ideas of a distinctly public realm began to crystallize. On the other hand, in reaction to the claims of monarchs and later, parliaments to the unrestrained power to make law, there developed a countervailing effort to stake out distinctively private spheres free from the encroaching power of the state. Religions are normative communities and cultures, which may prescribe for their members and adherents certain often quite contested norms, values, attitudes and behaviour.
