"Aurat Aurat Ki Dushman Hai": A Woman's Survival Strategy Under Patriarchy

What “Aurat Aurat Ki Dushman Hai” Really Means

We’ve all heard “Aurat aurat ki dushman hai.” I first heard it from a wonderful influential woman I looked up to, and 10 years later I still remember how jarred I felt hearing it from a woman with an enviable career and very strong standing in society.

I realized what she meant a decade later when I was in a horrible situation and so many women around me refused to offer me the emotional protection I begged for, for many months. In their eyes, it was my fault I was screamed at, berated and emotionally harmed. Couldn’t I stay quiet? Could I forgive the perpetrator for the violent threats he made in anger? Didn’t I realize that men say violent things when they are angry but they are just empty threats?

“43% of women and 34% of men agree that a husband is justified in beating his wife for at least one specific reason.”Source: Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2012–13, as reported by Dawn

But my anthropologically analytical mind unpacked this statement, and I realized that not all women were each other’s enemy; only a very specific woman chose to not align her loyalties with women.

A Statement Based on Survival

Economic Dependency

Why would a woman who does not have financial or physical protection within a society align her loyalties with another woman who could not offer her this protection at all? She would align with the powerful party, the men and patriarchy, who offer her a respectable standing with society. In sociological terms, this is known as “bargaining with patriarchy,” a concept coined by theorist Deniz Kandiyoti. It means that when a system gives men absolute control over resources, legal rights, and social safety, a woman’s safest path to survival is not to fight the system, but to play strictly by its rules.

According to recent World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap data, Pakistan ranks extremely low (third to last, actually) in women’s economic participation. For millions of women, particularly in rural regions like Sindh and Punjab, there is little to no structural access to land, independent wealth, or safe employment. When your physical survival depends entirely on a father, husband, or son, defending their authority is effectively defending your own life support.

Izzat

Societal frameworks like chaar diwari (confinement to the four walls of the home) link a family’s public honor directly to female compliance and modesty. Stepping outside these boundaries doesn’t just mean social disapproval—it carries the very real threat of extreme domestic abuse, being cast out onto the streets without resources, or gender-based violence. Under such high stakes, conforming is the only logical protective shield.

Because the overall lifetime prevalence of domestic violence against women in Pakistan is estimated to be between 52% (meta-analysis data) and 70% to 90% (human rights and NGO data), sociology and public health researchers note that nearly all of these instances are framed by the perpetrator as a reaction to a woman’s failure to comply.

Powerless Bahu, Cruel Mother-in-Law Dynamic

In joint and extended family structures, a young bride enters the household at the bottom of the hierarchy. She endures years of subjugation, but the “patriarchal bargain” promises her that if she complies, she will eventually inherit authority as a mother-in-law or matriarch. Consequently, older women often police younger women not out of cruelty, but because they have spent a lifetime earning their sliver of security within the system, and challenging it now would invalidate their own sacrifices.

Leaving an Abusive Husband: What UK Courts Found

In fact, in international asylum law, UK court rulings (such as the landmark SM (Lone Women – Ostracism) Pakistan case) heavily utilized field data to show that a woman in Pakistan who leaves an abusive husband or defies family wishes faces severe, inescapable societal ostracism.

Male Alignment as a Form of Love and Protection

Unfortunately, the reality is that a woman who urges silence, compliance, and suffering, enforces punishment, and restricts isn’t a woman who hates you. It is a learned form of protection against the consequences of a harsh society.

In dangerous or deeply conservative environments, women understand a terrifying truth: society will punish non-conformity ruthlessly. She is desperately trying to reduce her daughter’s visibility to predators and societal enforcers. In her mind, temporary submissiveness inside the home is a small price to pay to avoid catastrophe outside it.

Women pass down the exact survival strategies that kept them alive. If a mother navigated a highly patriarchal system, survived it, and managed to secure a stable life, she genuinely believes that her method is the only functional blueprint for a woman’s security.

This highlights the ultimate tragedy of structural oppression: it forces loving parents to become the prison guards of their own children. A woman is trapped in a paradox where, to physically protect her daughter from a brutal world, she must emotionally suppress her independence at home. The motivation is entirely well-natured, but the tools she is forced to use are dictated by the patriarchy.

The Feminist Woman, the Divorced Woman and the Unmarried Woman as a Sanctuary

When you are suffering within a patriarchal system, unmarried and feminist women act as psychological and emotional sanctuaries because they sit outside the traditional “bargain.” They do not have a vested interest in defending the system that is hurting you.

Here’s how a woman who is a sanctuary helps a woman, vs. the traditional male-aligned woman:

1. They Don’t Need to Justify the System

When a woman is married and has completely conformed to the patriarchal structure—enduring her own silent sacrifices to keep the peace—hearing about your pain is deeply triggering for her. If she validates your pain as a structural injustice, she has to admit that she is also living inside an unfair system.

The Protective Denial: To protect her own mental stability, she might tell you to “comply,” “adjust,” or “compromise” (sabar).
The Contrast: Unmarried, divorced and feminist friends don’t have to engage in that mental gymnastics. Because they haven’t signed that specific contract—or have actively ripped it up—they can look at a woman’s pain clearly and say, “This is wrong, and you do not deserve this.”

2. Radical Empathy vs. Transactional Advice

In traditional circles, advice is transactional: “Do X, Y, and Z so your husband/father stays happy and you stay safe.” The focus is entirely on managing the man’s behavior.

Feminist and unmarried friends offer radical empathy. They center you as the main character of your own life, not your relationship to a man. They understand your pain as pain, not as a “glitch” you just need to fix by being more submissive.

3. A Space Free of Judgment

For an unmarried, divorced or feminist woman, navigating a highly traditional society like Pakistan already requires a thick skin and a rejection of standard societal timelines. Because they are already judged by the collective, they are far less likely to turn around and judge you. They create a rare, judgment-free zone where you can drop the mask of the “good, resilient woman” and just be entirely vulnerable.

But… The Sad Reality That Does Not Allow This to Be

When a woman has zero financial independence, zero legal safety nets, and no societal permission to exist as an individual, she does not have the luxury of making choices based on ideology. She makes them based on what keeps her alive until tomorrow.

When a Pakistani woman faces abuse or oppression, she can’t leave, get a job, rent an apartment, and rely on the police or a legal system.

It is deeply exhausting to navigate a life where your humanity is entirely conditional on your submission. Recognizing the nuance doesn’t make the pain any less sharp, but it does mean you can stop blaming the women around you—and stop blaming yourself—for the coping mechanisms forced upon you by a broken world.