Sociological Science

In his seminal work 'Ordaining Women,' Mark Chaves (1997b) highlighted the phenomenon of 'loose coupling' regarding female religious leadership: congregations often display inconsistencies between their stated policies and actual practices. Some congregations declare openness to female leadership but do not practice it, whereas others officially forbid female leadership yet have women in leadership roles. Our article identifies a theoretical mechanism producing this inconsistency. We propose that congregations typically first loosen their formal rules governing female access to leadership and only later allow women to occupy leadership positions in practice. This two-stage process results in a temporal lag…

• UD
  Université de Lausanne