yehia's relationships with his mother, sister, and wife amal are a key theme in both the flashbacks and the court scenes. insofar as they have mistreated yehia, the film suggests that these women's behaviours arises from their own experience of and participation in patriarchal oppression. yehia's mother is forced to marry and have children young; in turn, she imposes the same strictures on her daughter; and yehia himself refuses to allow his daughter to pursue a love-marriage just before his heart-attack. amal is similarly confined by motherhood and yehia's own infantility.