SOURCE: Manuel, Dolores de. “Marriage in Philippine-American Fiction.” Philippine Studies 42, no. 2 (1994): 210-16.

In the following essay, which was originally a lecture delivered in 1993, Manuel delineates the role of marriage in the work of Santos, Jessica Hagedorn, and Linda Ty-Casper.

What does marriage signify in Philippine-American fiction? A number of stories and novels, spanning several decades, can be read as addressing the question both directly and indirectly. The answers constitute a discourse on the economy of marriage, an attempt to determine whether the institution is by nature productive or destructive, fertile or sterile. In working out the equation of value, the fiction of Jessica Hagedorn, Bienvenido Santos and Linda Ty-Casper quickly brings many factors to the surface. The meaning of marriage depends on where the protagonists have located themselves, and whether this act of self-positioning is conceived in terms that are geographical, racial, cultural or emotional. It depends on...