RS11Relationships: Families and Gender Equality

A family is a group of people related by blood, marriage or adoption. Families in Britain take many forms.

• Nuclear family: two parents and their children living together.
• Extended family: parents, children and other relatives, such as grandparents, aunts and uncles, living together or close by and supporting each other.
• Other families: single-parent families, blended (step) families, same-sex parents, and couples without children.
• Christian views: many Christians see the family as the foundation of society, created by God, with marriage at its centre. Many churches also support single-parent and blended families with practical help and without judgement.
• Muslim views: the family is the foundation of the community (ummah). Extended families are common, and caring for relatives is a religious duty. ‘We have created you male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another’ (Qur’an 49:13, Pickthall’s translation of the meaning).
• Non-religious views: many people value any family that gives love and security, whatever its shape.

Types of family in Britain today

Family

A group of people related by blood, marriage or adoption.

Nuclear family

Two parents and their children living together.

Extended family

A family that includes other relatives, such as grandparents, aunts and uncles.

• Parents are expected to love and care for their children, provide for them, keep them safe, teach them right from wrong and, for religious parents, bring them up in the faith.
• Christian teaching for parents: ‘Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it’ (Proverbs 22:6, World English Bible). Paul tells fathers not to provoke their children but to bring them up with the Lord’s teaching (Ephesians 6:4). 1 Timothy 5:8 says believers must provide for their own household.
• Children are expected to respect and obey their parents and, as adults, to care for them in old age.
• Christian teaching for children: ‘Honour your father and your mother’ (Exodus 20:12), one of the Ten Commandments. ‘Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right’ (Ephesians 6:1).
• Muslim teaching: the Qur’an commands ‘kindness to parents’, and says that when they grow old children should not even say ‘Fie’ to them (17:23, Pickthall). A hadith says of a mother, ‘Paradise is beneath her feet’ (Sunan al-Nasa’i 3104). Muslim parents teach their children the faith, for example prayer and the Qur’an.
• Care for elderly relatives: many Christians and Muslims see looking after ageing parents at home as a duty and an act of love, though some families use care homes when needs are complex.

• Procreation: having children to continue the human race. God told the first humans to ‘be fruitful, multiply’ (Genesis 1:28). Many Christians and Muslims see children as a blessing from God.
• Stability and the protection of children: a family gives children a safe, loving, secure home, with routine, care and adults who protect them. Many religious believers think a married, committed couple gives the most stable base.
• Educating children in a faith: many Christian parents have their children baptised or dedicated, promising to bring them up as Christians; they pray together, go to church and Sunday school, and celebrate Christmas and Easter. Muslim parents whisper the call to prayer (adhan) into a newborn baby’s ear, teach salah and the Qur’an at home and at the mosque school (madrasah), and keep Ramadan together.
• Why it matters to believers: passing on the faith keeps it alive in the next generation and, for many, is a duty to God.
• Other views: some believers, and many non-religious parents, prefer children to choose a faith for themselves when they are older.

The three purposes named in the specification

Procreation

Having children.

Stability

Safety and security, so children can grow up without fear or upheaval.

Same-sex parents are two men or two women bringing up children together, through adoption, fostering, surrogacy, donor conception or an earlier relationship.

• The law: same-sex couples have been able to adopt jointly in England and Wales since 2005. Adoption agencies can’t refuse couples because of their sexual orientation.
• Support from some Christians: many liberal Christians believe what children most need is love, care and stability, which same-sex parents can give. God is love (1 John 4:8), and Jesus welcomed children and people others rejected. Adoption gives a home to a child who needs one.
• Opposition from some Christians: Catholic teaching and many Evangelicals believe a child has the right to a mother and a father, because God made humans male and female (Genesis 1:27) and designed the family around marriage between a man and a woman.
• Most Muslims believe children should be raised by a married mother and father, as same-sex relationships are forbidden. Islam values adoption-like care (kafalah) of orphans, while keeping the child’s birth name and family line.
• Non-religious views: humanists support same-sex parents. They argue that research on children’s wellbeing shows that what matters is the quality of care, not the parents’ sex.

Same-sex parents

Two men or two women bringing up children together.

• Polygamy means being married to more than one person at the same time. Monogamy means being married to one person at a time.
• UK law: marrying someone while already married (bigamy) is a crime in the UK.
• Christianity teaches monogamy: ‘they will be one flesh’ (Genesis 2:24) describes one man and one woman, and Paul says ‘let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband’ (1 Corinthians 7:2). Polygamy appears among Old Testament figures such as Abraham and Jacob, but Christians follow Jesus’ teaching on marriage. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) ended polygamy in 1890; only break-away groups practise it.
• Islam allows a man up to four wives, on strict conditions: ‘marry of the women, who seem good to you, two or three or four; and if ye fear that ye cannot do justice (to so many) then one (only)’ (Qur’an 4:3, Pickthall). Many Muslims explain that the verse came at a time when war (the Battle of Uhud) had left many widows and orphans who needed protection.
• Many Muslims argue for monogamy, because the Qur’an also says ‘Ye will not be able to deal equally between (your) wives, however much ye wish’ (4:129). Most Muslims in Britain are monogamous, and they follow UK law.
• Non-religious views: most people in Britain see polygamy as unfair to women and as harmful to equality.

Polygamy

Being married to more than one person at the same time.

Monogamy

Being married to only one person at a time.

Bigamy

Marrying someone while still married to someone else. A crime in the UK.

• Traditional roles: in the past, men were expected to earn money and lead the family, and women to run the home and bring up children. Today most families in Britain share paid work and housework in many different ways.
• Equal in God’s image: ‘God created man in his own image… male and female he created them’ (Genesis 1:27, World English Bible). Many Christians conclude that men and women have equal worth and should have equal roles.
• Equal but different: some Christians believe men and women are equal in value but have different, complementary roles. They point to Ephesians 5:22-25 (wives submit to husbands; husbands love their wives as Christ loved the Church). Many other Christians read this as reflecting its own culture, and note that the passage begins with everyone submitting to one another (5:21).
• Islam: men and women are equal before God and receive the same reward for faith and good deeds (33:35). Many Muslims believe men and women have complementary roles: the husband provides for the family and the wife has a special role as mother, though she may work and keep her own money. Qur’an 4:34, about men as ‘in charge of’ or ‘protectors of’ women, is interpreted in very different ways.
• Examples: the Prophet Muhammad’s first wife, Khadijah, was a successful businesswoman who employed him; his wife Aishah became a leading teacher of hadith.

Gender equality means that people of every gender should have the same rights and opportunities.

• The law: the Equal Pay Act 1970 and Sex Discrimination Act 1975 made unequal pay and sex discrimination illegal. The Equality Act 2010 makes sex a protected characteristic. Religious groups have some exemptions, for example over who can be a minister.
• Christian support for equality: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3:28, Paul’s letter). Jesus treated women with respect, taught them, and women were the first witnesses of his resurrection.
• Muslim support for equality: ‘the noblest of you, in the sight of Allah, is the best in conduct’ (Qur’an 49:13, Pickthall): worth depends on goodness, not gender. Muslims point out that the Qur’an gave women rights to inherit, own property and agree to their marriage.
• Different views on what equality means: some believers see equality as identical roles; others as equal value with different roles. Both views exist within Christianity and within Islam.
• Non-religious views: humanists support full equality in law, work, family and religion, based on fairness and human rights.

Gender equality

The idea that people of every gender should have the same rights and opportunities.

• Prejudice is an unfair attitude, judging someone before knowing them. Discrimination is unfair treatment, acting on prejudice.
• Examples: paying a woman less than a man for the same work; not promoting women to top jobs (the ‘glass ceiling’); sexual harassment; assuming men can’t be carers; excluding people from roles because of their gender; discrimination against transgender people.
• Christian responses: all are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), and Jesus taught ‘whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them’ (Matthew 7:12), so discrimination is wrong. Many churches campaign for equal treatment.
• Muslim responses: God created all people and judges them by their conduct, not their gender (49:13). Muslims also point to the Prophet Muhammad’s kindness to women and his teaching that the best of people are those who are best to their wives (Jami’ at-Tirmidhi 3895).
• A debated example: some believers argue that keeping some religious roles for men is not discrimination but faithfulness to tradition; others say it is discrimination in a religious setting.

Prejudice

Unfairly judging someone before the facts are known.

Discrimination

Acting against someone on the basis of prejudice.

Sexism

Prejudice or discrimination because of someone’s sex or gender.

• Church of England: women have been priests since 1994 and bishops since 2015. Sarah Mullally became the first woman Archbishop of Canterbury, installed on 25 March 2026.
• Catholic and Orthodox Churches ordain only men as priests and bishops. They teach that Jesus chose men as his twelve apostles, and the Church follows his example. They stress that this is about the role of the priest, not about women’s worth.
• Many Protestant Churches, such as Methodists, Baptists and the United Reformed Church, have women ministers. Quakers have no ordained ministers: anyone may speak in a meeting.
• Islam: in most mosques, the imam who leads prayers for men and women is a man. Women are scholars, teachers and leaders in many communities, and in some places lead prayers for other women.
• Last checked 6 November 2026.

Women in religious leadership: a simplified picture