Note 166 — San Agustin’s Letter on the Filipinos

75. The women are very devout, and in every way of good habits. The cause for this is that they are kept so subject and so closely occupied; for they do not lift their hands from their work, since in many of the villages they support their husbands and sons, while the latter are busied in nothing else but in walking,166 in gambling, and wearing fine clothes, while the greatest vanity of the women is in the adornment and demeanor of these gentlemen, for they themselves are very poorly and modestly167 clad.