I grew up surrounded by women wearing Burqas. In the British-ruled Lahore (a big city in Pakistan) of the 1940s, almost every middle class Muslim woman wore what is now the Afghan Burqa. My mother and aunts went for shopping, movies and picnics wearing Burqas.They would have been shocked to show their faces to men who were strangers. As women grew old, they often took off the Burqa, replacing it with a thick cotton shawl (Chadour) loosely wrapped around the head and shoulders, with the face left open.
The Burqa was a mark of respectability.Women who worked along- side their men in fields, shops and domestic settings, did not wear it. These women, numerically a majority of the population, wore the Chadour but generally stayed aloof from men who were not relatives. The Burqa was both expensive and obstructive for them.
When a family rose on the social scale, e.g. sons/ daughters became clerks, teachers, mechanics etc, or husbands /fathers were successful in business, its women started donning the Burqa. It was a symbol of their newly gained social status and class