courtship and women

im not a courtship type of person. i dont court. not because i dont know how to but i just dont believe that i have to. in fact, i havent tried courting in my life. i prefer to start everything with friendship when all defenses are down and the view is clear and real.

but then courtship is big in our culture. im not certain if courtship is already practiced during the pre-hispanic era but it has become part of the philippine culture during the colonial stage of our history. this is interesting because it is also during this time that the female sex has been fully differentiated from its male counterpart. certain records claim that women enjoy almost the same level of power in society during the pre-hispanic era but this has completely changed when spain conquered the country.

during the spanish colonization and long afterwards, a 2-fold view of women was established. the virgin mary and the mary magdalene. we have the virginal woman who is pure, soft-spoken, and mild in manners. and there is the mary magdalene who is rebellious, wild, liberated, and sexually promiscuous.

obviously, it is the virgin that has been the focus of courtship. they were the ones who were given flowers, serenaded, and visited every night at their houses. all these effort just to obtain the virgin’s love, the virgin’s hand for marriage, and the virgin’s virginity.

the magdalene on the other hand is not courted. they were paid. they were given money or favors so that men could obtain and experience their sexuality. of course, relatively inexperienced magdalenes (sariwa pa) fetch a higher price than those who are already past their prime (laspag na). so that virginity or the freshness thereof still plays a factor in determining the monetary value of the magdalenes.

at first glance, it seems these two types of women are perceived and treated differently by society. but this is not really the case. whether a woman is a virgin or a magdalene, both are still perceived as a commodity that can obtained. though the means are different (courtship for the virgin, money for the magdalene) they are still ‘acquired’ by men and thereafter treated as possesions whose main aim is to please the possesor.

obviously, courting a woman is more difficult than paying for one. thus, no one in their right mind would really court a magdalene since the scarce resource (in this case, the women’s virginity) is no longer present in them.  but men are willing to exert effort in courting a virgin so as to be given the chance to conquer and own a woman who has not been ‘owned’ yet by other men.

courtship is a practice aimed to acquire a woman. sometimes it is a competition. sometimes it is not. but all the time it places a value on the woman. it turns them into a commodity much like a magdalene is. men window shops in bars, parties, malls, picks one they like and attempts to obtain the goods that have caught their eyes. they may not necessarily pay for the woman but still they buy them through flowers, chocolates, dates, with the aim of bringing them home, unwrapping them, and using them at their own pleasure.

~ by armedlittleboy on November 17, 2008.