In both China and Greece, religion was an area in which women played prominent roles and received formal social recognition. If the distinct religious structures of China and Greece had profound implications for the forms and ideals of male sociability in the two societies, as shown in Part 1, what will we find when we turn to the other half of the population? We have seen that the centrality of the highly competitive public festivals and the secondary status of domestic religious practices in Greece corresponded and contributed significantly to the preeminence of the common domain in Greek society. Where did this religious structure leave the wives and daughters, who were denied political participation and expected to be fully devoted to their domestic duties? How did the women's extensive presence in various public religious occasions (particularly their participation in the female choruses at the festivals) on the one hand and the little knowledge that we possess of their religious activities at home on the other hand square with such family-centered expectations? If for men religious participation was a crucial means for asserting membership in a community of peers and for forging extrafamilial group solidarity, how should we characterize the role of religion in Greek women's lives if it seems to have encouraged the same values centered on extrafamilial homosocial bonding?

The disparity between gender norms and women's religious participation in Greece apparently did not exist for Chinese women.