Policy Brief No. 7. Religious Family Law and Gender Equality. Legal Challenges and Public Policy Options

• Pages: 59-64
• Author: Silvia Meseguer Velasco

TARGET AUDIENCE

Legislators, legal practitioners, technical sta in public administrations and civil registry ocers,

public policymakers, and professionals in international organisations working on equality, human

rights and diversity management.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The intersection of religious family law and the principle of gender equality is one of the most com-

plex challenges facing contemporary legal systems, generating structural tensions between the gen-

der equality recognised in international human rights instruments and the autonomy of religious

communities to establish their own matrimonial rules as a concrete expression of freedom of religion

and belief.

This document identies the key challenges and analyses the public policy options available to legis-

lators and legal practitioners, proposing recommendations to guarantee both religious freedom and

eective equality between women and men in the matrimonial and family sphere.

KEY POLICY QUESTION

To what extent should the state respect the religious autonomy of faith communities in matrimonial

matters, and when should it intervene to guarantee eective equality between women and men?

59

GENDER EQUALITY AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN THE 2030 AGENDA:

TEN POLICY BRIEFS

Francisca Pérez-Madrid (coord.)

Dykinson, Madrid, 2026

POLICY BRIEF

RELIGIOUS FAMILY LAW AND GENDER EQUALITY

LEGAL CHALLENGES AND PUBLIC POLICY OPTIONS

Silvia Meseguer Velasco

Associate Professor of Law, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

1

THE POLICY

PROBLEM

In many states, national legal systems coexist with religious family law frameworks

— canonical, Islamic, Jewish or from other faith traditions — that govern essential as-

pects of personal status: marriage, divorce, liation, succession and child custody. This

normative plurality can give rise to a structural tension between the state’s obligation

to guarantee equality between spouses in civil law and the right to religious freedom

and the organisational autonomy of faith communities.

Groups particularly affected:

u Women belonging to faith communities with strong internal cohesion, where prac-

tices such as polygamy or repudiation result in the absence of civil recognition of their

religious marriages.

u Female minors subject to confessional liation regimes.

u Migrant women whose personal status is governed by foreign law of religious origin.

u Women in socioeconomically vulnerable situations without eective access to legal

assistance.