This paper explores, in Assiut, Egypt, how women respond to IPV and how their social relations sustain or prevent it. Nineteen qualitative interviews with married women were coded in MaxQDA, revealing a pattern of strategic conformity. Most women blamed the wife for spousal aggression and recommended modifying her behavior to end it. Talking with female kin, who often advised tolerance, was the next most common reaction. When such tactics failed, a woman might ask male kin to intervene. Seeking the police or courts was considered shameful and might jeopardize a woman’s marriage. Women enacted “the good woman” to preserve self-worth and oblige husbands or male kin to return protection. Ostensibly, these strategies mitigated IPV but maintained its underlying patriarchal structures