some accusation of this infamous sin is imputed to them. In
their marriages and among their kindred their disgust is not moved
except by this, for the others are excused by self interest, but this
fault is not. [243]

74. All that I have said of the men is very different in the women,
saltem quoad modum. [244] For they are of better morals, are docile
and affable, and show great love to their husbands and to those who
are not their husbands. They are really very modest in their actions
and conversation, to such a degree that they have a very great horror
of obscene words; and if weak nature craves acts, their natural modesty
abhors words. [245] The notion that I have formed of them is that they
are very honorable, and, most of all, the married women. Although beans
are boiled, it is not by the kettleful, as in other regions. [246]
Scarcely will one find a Tagalog or Pampango Indian woman, who will
put her person to trade; and they are not so abandoned as we see in
the women in other regions. They are very averse toward the Spaniard,
and love the equality [in marriage] of their own nation; and, as a
foreign religious said, are suited "each man to each woman." They
rarely have any love for a Spaniard. They have another peculiarity,
which if the Indian women of America had, that land would not be so
full of mulattoes, who are a ferocious and wicked race. This is their
horror for Cafres and negroes, which is so great that they would sooner
suffer themselves to be killed than to receive them. The Visayan women,
however, are ready for everything, and are not so fastidious. On the
contrary, they are very ready to consent to any temptation. [247]

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, [248] 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 modestly [249] clad.

76. In all that I have said, to this point, concerning the nature and
morals of these poor people, I have done no more than to approximate
[to the truth], as the mathematicians have done in the squaring of
the circle. For an essential, substantial, and exhaustive definition