Notes on the Bontok's view on relationships between men and women, nudity and sex

(The last of a series)

Of arranged marriages and love

It wasn't mentioned explicitly in the film, but the Bontok appeared to believe in monogamy. There were people who remained unmarried, but they believed in marriage.

The parents arranged the marriages. This did not mean that the Bontok never married for love-- they also did (we'll talk about that later)-- it's just that the parents were the ones who talked and finalized it. Often, it did happen that the couple, especially the woman, did not love the man she was betrothed to, but they would get married anyway in accordance with their parents' wishes.

Medical Ethics is NOT Common Sense

Better view of the letter here

When it's about three major things in your life, you just can't help it.

Almost a year later, this still gets me all fired up. People should know this, and yet they don't. There's still much to say. The vehemence to talk about this more and convince you that this is ethical consumes me.

Notes on the Bontok and work

(The fifth of a series)

One of the factors that may promote the concept of rape is idleness. As they say, idleness is the playground of the devil. A society where people can end up having nothing and doing nothing with their lives is no good in preventing crime.

Work in the fields

In the old Bontoc, there were no unemployed bums who just drank and gambled all day. The Bontok were a hardworking people whose work was central to their daily lives. Everyone able was sent to the fields to work. Those who cannot go to the fields (i.e. the elderly, the disabled) are left in the village to care for the children.

But work in the fields was not just work; it was a social activity. People get to interact while working, like some sort of bonding activity. In fact, it was where the youth fell in love and found their spouses. There was also food: owner of the field provided it as compensation. Perhaps the La Presa community in the hit local teleserye Forevermore is a nice depiction of what it had been like.

Notes on the Bontok gender beliefs

(The fourth of a series)

The restrictions imposed on Bontok women mostly had to do with war. As mentioned earlier, women were not allowed in the male dormitories and this was only because those were the venues for talking about war. Women should not at all be implicated in those matters since:

(1) women should not die in war
(2) women have other more important concerns

Respect for women

It was discussed previously that men were not supposed to kill women during war because the Bontok associates women with life due to their natural capacity to give birth. Women were to be respected for man comes out of her (double meaning unintended!). Precisely because of this was female genitalia not supposed to be gazed upon.

Notes on the Bontok customs of "tribal" war

(Or the third of a series)

Rape of women in the times of war is unavoidable, one of my classes in UP (or maybe UPIS) discussed. It is symbolic of the taking a place, a symbol of overpowering a nation, an exertion of power. That's why in history they call it "the rape of <insert place here>." And as it is said, rape is more of a crime of power than  a sexual crime. During World War II, the Japanese army even established the infamous "comfort stations"-- military-controlled facilities for sexual slavery created especially for the Japanese soldiers-- after the large scale rape of women and girls they committed in Nanking, China. [1]

That's the most horrible thing I ever "learned" in a classroom. War sucks, and it does even more when you're a woman. The scary part is that it is the soldiers that commit most of it. They who have been trained to be disciplined commit the most atrocious acts. That's when you're certain war brings out the worst in humanity.