Inequality is the disparity of distribution or opportunity and can be looked at through many positions from a sociologist standpoint. This paper will look at the basics of gender inequality within marriage through three different religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
Looking at the basics of gender inequality one can ascertain that it is a learned behavior beginning at the developmental stages of childhood. According to Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development under the preoperational period (2-7 years of age) during the intuitive phase (4-7 years of age) a child’s “speech becomes more social…has an intuitive grasp of logical concepts.” In addition “concepts formed are crude and irreversible” which makes a child extremely susceptible to social perceptions set in place by the parents who in-turn are governed by their perceptions according to their particular faith. A part of a child’s upbringing involves what I call “social programming” which adheres to Piaget’s stages of development chart. This social programming happens when the parents pass on their behaviors to their children during the intuitive phase. For example something as simple as religion can be a product of social programming. By taking a child to a specific church consistently he or she will come to identify themselves as a part of that particular religion. Within that religion they will learn what their parents have learned and that is how they are to behave in accordance with their gender.
Without going into specifics on the three religions that will be discussed we can identify some of the obvious commonalities between them. Each of the religions sees the male as the dominant of the two genders and the female of the l ...