MAGUINDANAON traditions (adat) do not allow courtship before marriage. What is practiced is courtship after marriage. Marriage is usually fixed and arranged by parents. In most cases, the grooms and brides do not even know each other before marriage.
Pre-marriage courtship is MAKAYA (shameful) and a taboo within a traditional MAGUINDANAON community. Both male and female of marrying age are not allowed to choose their future husband or wife. It is the parents who usually make the choices for their children.
This is based on the traditional family and cultural belief that parents usually know the best for their children’s interests including the choices of their better half.
Presently however, this marriage and courtship practice is already a thing of the past. Most of the respondents claim that in the contemporary MAGUINDANAON society, fixed marriages are not anymore the norm of the MAGUINDANAON culture.
The children are now allowed by their parents to choose their future husbands/wives. Pre-marriage courtship is also already tolerated and accepted by the majority of the people in the community, and therefore, taboo no more. Nowadays, the MAGUINDANAONS are already given freedom by their parents to choose their lifetime partners.
Read: Islam, Women and Gender Justice: A Discourse on the Traditional Islamic Practices among the Tausug in Southern Philippines by Jamail A. Kamlian, a Fellow in Islam and Human Rights.
(A project for Islam and Human Rights Fellowship, Law and Religion Program, School of Law, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.)
MAGUINDANAO PRIDE 