My Aunt T and Uncle R came over last night to spend a week or two here at our house. They’re on vacation from Canada and they stayed with some relatives of my aunt down in Alabang half of this week. Uncle R is Papa’s cousin, so their relatives in Alabang aren’t our blood relations.

“Ibinebenta ka na namin (We’re setting up a match for you),” Aunt T said with a laugh to me barely fifteen minutes after I’d first met her. Throughout last night she discussed the following things:

• My dad has two cousins who are both spinsters, so being an old maid runs in our family and must be prevented in my sister and myself.
• Filipina women are naturally more solicitous towards their husbands; they’ll serve them hand and foot because it’s how they show their love.
• She has a nephew whose family hit it big in agriculture, and she thinks I’ll make a fine match for him. By the way, he’s 33 years old.

I don’t know whether this is a byproduct of reading Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma in a row, but last night I felt like I was trapped inside a Jane Austen novel. Not that it’s a bad thing (I kept hoping Mr. Darcy would show up), but it just hadn’t occurred to me until then that there are actually people who will pair their niece (a spinster in-the-making) off with the next rich guy. Now I know why it was so revolting to Ms. Austen’s characters.