Analysis & Guide Questions

Rizal heavily emphasized the importance of educating children and women themselves in this letter by arguing for self-determination and how crucial it is that children are initially dependent on their mothers to learn. He posits that progress for the country lies in the progress of the individual woman as they are, first and foremost, the ones who births and raises the next generation.

For Rizal, education is the way for the Philippines to be liberated, and educated mothers are at the forefront of this for they are “first to influence the consciousness of man.” But for this to happen, women and mothers themselves must not behave in the way the friars shape them up to be; they must be rational, with integrity, and be of courage. He posits that women must have these qualities in order to raise their children to be the same so as to not be subservient to the friars and others who insist upon their own wisdom as the truth.

A woman must be rational and discern for herself what is right and wrong. It is not through blind obedience that one can be of good character, but rather through the use of the God-given ability of reason. To Rizal, it is in this self-determining quality that women should strive for: prudence, not of ignorance but of reason.

A woman must have integrity and honor to conduct herself in proper standards and to command respect. To be firm with one’s principles and to have them prevail despite external influences is to have integrity. The Filipino women must resist the friars’ shaping of their character so as to shape their own children to be honorable citizens that will fight for their land and help their fellow countrymen.

A woman must be brave so as to instill courage unto their children. In Rizal’s comparison of the Spartan women, he illustrates how the mothers of Spartan soldiers instill honor even in sending them to war; that they either return home victorious or die in the battlefield. To teach this valiant honor amongst their children is to teach love of their land, to reject complacency, to choose to die with honor than to live in dishonor.

Rizal’s position on women’s liberation is centered on their motherly duties and their self-determination as a precedence of the former’s successes. The Philippines cannot be liberated if the children are taught to be subservient by their subservient mothers; it starts with them, from our infancy to our maturity, it is our mothers who teach us how to be and who to be in this world.

Rizal’s essay spends most of its initial paragraphs illustrating the hypocrisy and ironies of the church and its proponents. The quality of “prudence” the church taught is tantamount to subservience and submission to the friars and the Spaniards. Rizal urges the women to think rationally, to think for themselves, and to be aware of their complicity in the orders they follow. They are culpable for the actions they make even if they are only following orders.

This call to resistance plays into self-determination and choosing to exercise their free-will, for them to develop a true sense of prudence that is reasonable and not of blind obedience. As much as Rizal is urging them to turn away from what the friars have instilled in them, he does not outright call for absolute independence of action - to not follow orders - but rather “obeying only that which is reasonable and just.” He makes the clear distinction between what the church teaches about prudence and what it actually is, furthering the illustration of the church’s disconnect from what God represents. He recognizes the importance of having a collective thought, in him saying “we should not consult our own judgment alone, but hear the opinion of others before doing what may seem most reasonable to us.”

Rizal’s stance on the independence of the Filipino woman rests on their responsibility for their agency, and having an independent, reasonable way of thinking that is based on the appreciation and consideration of other people’s thoughts in views. Not exactly a complete rejection of what was taught to them, but an urge to consider what and where the actual truth of these values lies in and how best they can embody them.

The letter, in its own right, is as timeless as the struggle for women’s equality, for as long as it exists, there needs to be a reminder that independent thought and self-determination through rationality are crucial foundations for this struggle to be won. Women in different parts of the world are still under misogynistic and archaic laws and social practices that keep them down and their rights and freedom stunted, just as how Rizal illustrated the Filipino women, though brave, were conquered to submission.

One, if not the most important, aspect of Rizal’s message that will forever be present to women of all generations is their duty and responsibility of raising their children to be citizens. Our mothers are our first teachers, our first guide into the world unknown to us and our unconscious minds. It is their hands and voice that we follow because we trust them and what they say and do to be true. How the next line of people are raised will speak for the future of society, and it is in this responsibility that mothers influence the tomorrows to come.

Independence of thought and self-determination holds the key to solidifying one’s own place in this world, and for women to fight for their place in a world where they actively resist oppression, they must have integrity that does not bend and does not wane. There will be no future to any society, any country, any group of people that only follow orders and say yes.