Intermarriage and Cultural Change: A Study of Philippine-American Marriages

Abstract

T HIS article is based upon a study of the modification of pattems occurring as a result of the marriage of Filipino women and American army personnel stationed in the Philippines. It is not directly concerned with the happiness of the marital partners nor does it attempt to estimate the success of marriages of this kind. Thus it is one of the few studies which consider the marital partners primarily in the role of culture bearers and endeavors to appraise the impact of contact in the family setting. Although intermarriage is obviously a situation which leads to conflict as well as diffusion and modification, most studies of intermarriage consider the cultural elements only indirectly and focus attention on the problem of individual adjustment. One study somewhat similar to the present one was made in the Canal Zone by Biesanz and Smith.' Another study which focused on changes in the role of the wife dealt with marriages in northern California between Poma Indian females and Filipino males.2 These two studies are the only ones of this type which could be located in the literature. In common with the Philippine study they focus on cultural change and they consider marriages in which one of the mates came from a cultural background reflecting the influence of a Spanish colonial culture. The specific settings, however, are quite different, and a comparison of these studies should throw some light on the influence of intermarriage on cultural accommodation. The Philippine study was focused on the vicinity of an American military installation which is economically important to the surrounding area but not completely dominant. The base is a nearly self-contained military unit, and, except for local employees and taverns catering to military trade, there is little direct contact between American personnel and the surrounding Philippine population. This study is based on an interview sample of the husbands of twenty families; this included all of the mixed families in the vicinity of the installation who had been married for two years or more. All of the families lived either on the base or close by, and in all cases the husband was a Caucasian American employed by the United States armed forces in either a civilian or a military capacity. The interviews were conducted by a graduate student in sociology at the University of the Philippines who was a military physician at the time and utilized his military contacts to obtain the interviews, which were held in his office. The interviews might be described as modified-directive since, although they covered a definite schedule, the respondent was encouraged to describe the family relationships in a narrative style using his own nomenclature.