Which is why one of the reasons I liked reading this book was the historical perspective it provided.

Overall I did enjoy the book, the political parts were a bit too much for me, as I have no interest. Like all women of her rank, she was expected to marry a prosperous Muslim from a respectable family, bear him many children and lead a sheltered life of leisure. Unlike Tasleema Nasrin, Durrani does not challenge the Islamic point of view, instead she challenges male chauvinism in a feudal and intolerant society. His first wife, older than him and handed to him on the authority of his father, he ran off to the city to escape after impregnating. While exposing the personality of her feudal lord, Tehmina has revealed more of her complex personality and twisted mind.The author tries too hard to portray herself as totally naive and innocent, preyed on by a tyrannical and cruel husband. She was not allowed to think, and her perceptiveness became the danger, only her surrender to lethargic stupidity and active denial was protecting the shoddy structure of her marriage.

He wanted to demolish the structure that ridiculed his origins and lacked at his lack of breeding and style. Were her 'Islamic prayers' not disturbed when she broke her own home and the heart of her first husband Anees? Her painstakingly disciplined upbringing in the house where her father was ceaselessly hen-pecked by her mother, where the mirage of perfection was necessary, where she was traumatized unremittingly about her dark complexion, where her mother was a dictator and Tehmina was a mere pawn, left her with plethora of insecurities regarding her beauty and shaken confidence.She complains about corruption but is perfectly content to receive extralegal VIP treatment to forego laws upheld by immigration, visas, or courts. Even after Mustafa Khar starts to have an affair with Tehmina’s sister Adila, which would require another whole ten-thousand-words review to discuss properly, even after all the torture and rape and assault, Tehmina continues to fight to stay with him.