Within these constructions, the correlation is not between disobedience and punishment but between authority and punishment. It is not that the more disobedience, the more punishment but rather that the more authority, the more punishment. In the family structure, women play the double role of oppressor and oppressed, called upon to collude in and enforce variable standards and double binds at the same time that we are subject to such standards and double binds. At critical or transitional points in family life, what has been maternal enforcement of patriarchal standards changes to paternal enforcement. It is at these points that we see the actual limits of female autonomy within the family.
Mothers routinely turn a blind eye to the treatment and the behaviour of their children.
Maternal obliviousness or failure to see reflects and is the result of the inability to act without confronting patriarchal authority. Obliviousness or failure to see precludes having to choose whether to challenge authority. This tactic protects women from knowingly risking punishment, including the denial of virtue and worth. It is a tactic that enables women to survive within patriarchal structures. It allows women to negotiate individually within the limits defined by the paradigms of womanhood and by their own social and economic status how they can best satisfy authority and play obedient roles.