FAMILY PATTERNS

In Christian Filipinas, the family is monogamous, one wife and one husband at a given time while polygamous or multiple wives in Muslim Filipino families is allowed. Nowadays, Muslims generally practice monogamy. Families may stress the importance and authority of the father (patriarchal) or of the mother (matriarchal). Families may have an endogamous character which quires marriage within a specific group or they may have an extreme exogamous emphasis which taboos marriage within the tribe or clan. Even within the culture, family patterns vary greatly between urban and rural sections and reflect such differences as religious affiliation, nationality, background, and class structure.

Courtship and Marriage

The undergoing changes of family in all societies are caused by modernization with their co-occurrence developments such as industrialization, urbanization and out side influences brought in by mass media and contact with Western culture.

1. Courtship Among Early Filipinos

Courtship, mating, and divorce among early Filipinos revolved around the dowry or bride price. The dowry was a gift turned over by the groom to the bride's parents for all practical purposes exchange for the bride. When a man decided to marry, he consulted his parents and the elders in his family. If the girl and her family were acceptable the groom's family started to negotiate with the brides in a ceremony called the pamanhikan.

Elderly representatives of both parties discussed the terms of a dowry with great tact and diplomacy. Customarily the wise parents turned the dowry over their daughter as part of her paraphernal (personal) property brought into the marriage; but if the parents kept the dowry they return it to the groom in case of divorce. However, the wife could keep it if her husband was to blame for the separation.

1. The dowry in Philippine society has these functions

a. If signifies the "good intentions" of the young in the same way that earnest money is used in business transactions. It keeps fickle suitors away since the cost is too great not to flow through.

b. It signifies the financial status of both the groom and the bride as a sort of prestige giving conspicuous consumption.
c. Since the dowry gifts are usually shared by the woman in wider kinship borne group, all of her relatives become interested in the marriage. If the marriage seems headed for trouble, these ding relatives feel enough utang na loob and pakikiramay to put pressure on the bride to endure her husband's shortcomings. Conversely, the husband stands to lose his whole investment if the marriage collapses, and the since his relatives probably contributed to the dowry (abuluyan) they will bring pressure on him to put up with vagaries of his wife. Thus the dowry contributes to marriage stability.

2. The Dowry in Contemporary Philippine Society

There are still vestiges of the dowry system in contemporary wedding customs. In Filipino weddings, the bridegroom assumes responsibility for the wedding preparation, including the wedding dress and the celebration. This contrasts with the practice in Western societies where the major expenses are borne by the bride's parents. In the West, some brides would feet socially das graced to let the groom assume any wedding expense except the purchase of the wedding ring, the bride's bouquet, the marriage license the fee for the officiating clergyman or judge and the rehearsal dinner. But in the Philippines brides would be shocked if they were to share in the cot of the wedding.

The dowry system is practiced in another form today. Marriage considered a family affair and formal negotiations between the two families take place not only to discuss the wedding arrangements but also to decide what the dowry will be. The dowry usually a marriage settlement consisting of land, a house, or other goods given by the groom's family to the new couple. There is no social barrier to the bride's family contributing to the dowry, which represents the couple's capital in the start of their new life together. Because the families were jointly involved in the marriage; their watching over the couple tends to stabilize the marriage.

3. Choice of a Mate

The individualistic trend of gesellschaft society has begun to manifest itself in urban areas. There is more freedom of association among young people. The old idea of chaperonage is not dead, but it is being increasingly challenged couple dating is often practiced and even the idea of premarital virginity no longer gains unquestioned acceptance. Various studies of urban middle class populations indicate that somewhere between 14 and 45 percent of the women and over half of the men had premarital sex. Such studies have t rely on the statements of the respondents and are probably not complete reliable it has been suggested that men probably tend to exaggerate their sexual activities while women tend to minimize theirs.

In an earlier day, the general expectation was that respectable women would be virgins until married if they deviated from that pattern; they were fallen women unless the man married them shortly thereafter. It is not correct to say that this attitude is completely gone, but neither is it taken for granted as it was in the past. Now it is a matter of discussion and popular magazines occasionally quote prominent young people as saying that virginity is of no concern. On the other hand, the traditional attitudes persist and perhaps the situation is expressed in a statement by Matarongan.

Some reports have tended to exaggerate the new attitudes and the new morality, but a more accurate statement is that Filipino adolescents are caught in a period of transition where the concept of virgin is not really passe, but neither is the idea of premarital sex with a person one loves too far out to consider.

Youth today enjoy greater freedom of association with the other sex. The field from which to choose a mate is wider and greater opportunities are available for social contact one study of young married couple mostly college educated, in Metro Manila showed that 70 percent of the women and 67 percent of the men claim to have made their own marital choice independent of parental direction. Increasingly, young people feel they are free to select their mates. Their elders agree because they reason that after all it is the children and not the parents who live with their mates and in case the marriage does not succeed, the children cannot blame the elders. Nevertheless, watch on the persons with who their children associate. As much possible they try to influence their children's choices of mates. Kinship is very strong and any event in the individual's life is a group concern. The associated with marriage are such that no matter what the youth may ay about having inside endure choice of a mate the parents options and evaluation determine to a large extent the individual's decision. Parents generally defer to the children's choice after being convinced of its merits. The belief that in times of crisis, the family provides assistance, material or emotional is a very important factoring seeking parental approval.

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