Abstract:
This thesis serves as a comparative case study of legal secularism in France and England
to determine if legal secularism and its conflicts with Muslim family law generate
structural violence against Muslim women. This analysis makes use of existing literature
as well as in-depth analysis of the historical evolution of both legal systems in terms of its
relationship with religion as well as the current capacity of Muslim women in each state
to access the protections granted to them under both religious and secular law. It is this
lack of access that serves to generate structural violence, the consequences of which are
briefly explored in this research. The differences in the French and English systems
generate disparate levels of structural violence, primarily due to the greater presence of
dual spaces in which Muslim women can operate under both religious and secular law in
England in comparison to France.
