I’ve lived in the Philippines for 2 years. I work with young Filipino men and women. According to multiple sources, there are a few reasons:
-Family is everything to Filipinos. Much of the culture and many decisions they make are viewed through the lens of family (i.e.: Is this good for my family? Family before self, they find their value more in the group they are a part of…family… friend group (Barkada) etc…(Collectivism I think it’s called…many Asian countries are similar in this regard) Westerners find their value in who they are as an individual.
-Not all, or even most, by any means, but many Filipinos marry for money. In Western culture we marry for love, romance, compatibility, etc. Many Filipinos do as well… but some marry for money and stability. When a westerner marries a Filipino they hopefully know they are marrying the whole family (at least financially), because the Filipino will expect them to contribute to the whole extended family.
-Anytime a Filipino marries someone that is from a group that’s considered of a greater ‘status’, it pulls them up in status as well. Many Filipinos think highly of Americans, and other groups as well. If they marry someone from one of these groups it pulls them up in “status” somehow. For example, I have a Filipino friend who married a Taiwanese girl. He was, in turn, thought of a greater status because of who he married.
Keep in mind, that when viewed through western culture it may look “off” or gross that these young girls marry old white men…And it may be… but I’ve met many that were truly happily married to these older men… Whether they learned to love them or truly loved them from the beginning I don’t know. In dealing with different cultures than our own we must always be careful not to pass judgement as well as look at it through that culture’s own lens.
(Any Filipinos out there, feel free to correct or clarify anything I’ve said here.)
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