12 - Ligaw- Ligawan , kasal kasalan, bahay -bahayan , hiwa - hiwalayan

“Ligaw-Ligawan, Kasal-kasalan, Bahay-bahayan, Hiwa-Hiwalayan”

            The Philippines, is known for diverse in culture, ideologies and beliefs due to a number of contributing historical and geographical factor.  Although Filipinos are multicultural in character there is still a dominating cultural identity that makes us a different with other country. One aspects of it is on Marriage and Courtship, however because of the universal culture it’s slowly forgotten by our present generation. And did not give much value on importance of Marriage.

Marriage is union of two individuals. Church had a great influenced on our values and culture, as it was diffused by Spanish during their occupation in our country. Looking back during pre Spanish colonization Filipino has already possessed their unique culture when it comes to courtship and marriage. “Courtship” is an act of paying attention to somebody with a purpose of developing a more intimate relationship, man way of seeking affection is like giving gifts, walking home or doing stuff not only for a woman but to her entire clan. Man who is courting the woman must visit her at home, serve her family like fetching of water from well, chopping of firewood and the like. And the called “harana”, a man way of expressing his love by singing her, if the girl has a same feeling toward the man she will open the window and will let him inside the house.

 Women before are called “dalagang Filipina” as they are “pakipot” it’s a way of showing the guy that they need to work hard with her love, it’s also one way which the Filipina able to measure the sincerity of her admirer.  However it was sad that some of these unique Filipino romance courtships is slowly forgotten and didn’t practice any more by the present generation. In our present generation, with the innovation of newly hi- technology where everything was just a push of a button the essence of courtship is slowly disappear. Courtship before could last a year, but with our today generation, it’s very often you see a man visiting the girl at her home, worst is the parents would just meet the guy if the girl will got pregnant. It’s also disturbing the increasing rate of young pregnancy nowadays, where at early at puberty they are already becoming aware of premarital sex, and worst is practicing it.

            Marriage in Philippines is not just a union of two individuals but also primarily of their families, this even starts in the courtship stage where the man is not just going to serve the girl but also the rest of the clan. This is how the close family ties started when a couple is still living with their parents, it may have an advantage when family would able to help moral and sometimes financial needs, however in a long run the couple where becoming more dependent. And situation becomes more complicated when parents become part of the problem and sometimes the cause of it when parents started to meddle the lives of the couple and didn’t allow the couple to work out their issue. Bible has their own principle in marriage, it teaches us that in marriage the spouse should leave his or her parents and be with the husband or wife. But with our culture of close family ties mostly of the newly couple is tend to live with their parents, mostly young couple that both are unemployed and they just financially dependent with their parents.

Filipinos have a different perception when it comes to marriage compare to other nation.  Husband should be the head of the family and the man should financially provide the family and the wife should take care of the household chores. However due to economic difficulty mostly couple now has to work to sustain the financial needs. Whereas, the concept of the marriage is partnership where both individual is equally responsible, this is especially needed today in our present situation considering our economic status.

Nowadays, it’s alarming the rise of the marital breakup, where the couple wanted to nullify the marriage, irrespective of the reason of both party the value of marriage wasn’t consider any more. It’s just sad to hear story of a couple that ended up to a broken marriage and an innocent children who’s affected with the situation.   According to statistic it increases the rates of couple who filed an annulment every year. Was it the effect of innovation of new technology, cultural universal or simply the ignorance of the true value of marriage?  But looking back, we heard a story of our grandparents how they started as a couple and we saw how the marriage last and still see how they still respect and love each other. It’s just sad that we may not see any more golden wedding anniversary in our future because mostly couple nowadays prefer to have their own way and not try to keep the marriage.

 Marriage is not “kaning isusubo na pag napaso iluluwa mo” we frequently heard that with the older generation it’s an analogy of marriage on how we look at it now,  were marriage is not a trial and error stage that couple would just give up when they disgust each other. A relationship is like a rice, For you to able to appreciate every grains and giving the importance of it be a farmer that who are given the hard work, Planting the rice is a stage of courtship, you need to take care of it, nurture and wait until it become ripe and that’s the time before you reap with all of your hard work. Nothing is more fulfilling if you know you work hard on it, and you will give more importance on it.

In our present generation now, we can’t avoid changes but we shouldn’t compromise our values that start to deteriorate. Our Values and culture have been shaped throughout our lives from generation and will pass it to future generation,   it define us who are we regardless of our beliefs and our status in our society. Being aware of our history is very important to our generation for them not to forget the real essence of Value of Marriage that started in courtship.