The Radcliffe girl is a slightly more religious creature than the Harvard man.

Popular opinion usually regards the female as a member of the species with a greater degree of religiosity. Women are often considered more likely than men to accept doctrines of religious faith, and many clergymen will ascertain that women outnumber men in attendance at worship services. Frequently, the everyday explanation of this phenomenon is that the female is by nature a more sentimental and less rational being than the male.

Differences at University Less

In a university community, a difference between men and women in religious attitudes is less easy to perceive than among the general population. Particularly at a women's college with students of the intellectual caliber of Radcliffe, one would expect as much rationality and honest skepticism about religion as at a comparable men's institution.

Indeed, it is the opinion of the clergymen who work in the University community that Harvard and Radcliffe students are generally equal in their interest in religion and in their degree of belief or disbelief. The Rev. George A. Buttrick, Preacher to the University, notes further that a proportionate number of men and women students attend Sunday services at Memorial Church. The rabbi and ministers in the community also report that, of the students who come to them with problems, the number of girls is proportional to the colleges' enrollments.

Nevertheless, even on the college level, some divergences between the religious attitudes of men and women emerge. In the CRIMSON's poll of 310 undergraduates on religious and political questions, some small but perceptible differences between Harvard and Radcliffe appeared.

Radcliffe girls are less likely to reject their religious tradition entirely, more likely to pray and attend worship services, more outspoken against intermarriage, and more anxious to raise their children in their own faith. And unlike Harvard, Radcliffe girls are slightly more interested in religion than they are in politics.

In many other respects, the sampling of Radcliffe girls scarcely varied from the patterns set by Harvard undergraduates. The Annex exhibited its fair share of religious fundamentalists, moderates, liberals, agnostics, and atheists.

Affiliations About Equal

The percentages of membership in the various denominations diverged in only a few cases: The Radcliffe polls included a smaller percentage of Roman Catholics than Harvard. Although there was a comparable number of Jews, there were far fewer Orthodox and Conservative, the majority being Reform. Radcliffe showed a somewhat higher percentage of Episcopalians--6 for every 5 at Harvard. (This disproportion was corroborated by the personal observations of the Rev. Donald Maitland of Christ Church.)

On most of the basic questions concerning religious belief, there was little contrast between the men and women. There was nothing distinctive in the Radcliffe view of the nature of God, the role of organized religion, or the interpretation of scriptural statements.

The major differences between the sexes thus occurred not in beliefs but in religious practices, particularly in matters concerning marriage, family life, and the raising of children. This result corresponds well with the statements of the clergymen in the Harvard community. They recognize some difference in the religious attitudes of men and women, even when it is partially masked during the college years.

Dr. Buttrick attributed woman's special interest in religion to her centrality to the home and its security, not to greater emotionalism. Similarly, the Rev. Richard E. Mumma of the First Congregational Church noted that a woman has a deepened perception of religious things "out of her care for children and closer and more personal association with the family."

The average Radcliffe girl is less likely than her Harvard counterpart to reject the religious tradition of her family background, whatever it might be. Only one girl, for every three men, indicated a complete rejection of the religious tradition in which she was raised.

An overwhelming majority of Radcliffe girls wish to raise their own children in the same tradition in which they were brought up. For every 10 Harvard men who hope to raise children in their own religion, 17 'Cliffies wish to do so. In contrast, for each 10 men who want to give their children no religious training at all, there are only 4 girls of this opinion. And for every 10 men who would choose a different religion from their own in which to raise children, there are only 6 girls who wish to deviate from their own faith.