Premarital Sex and Religion: A Case Study Amongst High School Girls

Abstract

With the advent of globalization and modernization, the perception of Filipino people towards premarital sex also changes. The researcher made a study about the Catholic school girls' attitude towards premarital sex and tried to seek the factors that determine their stand towards such moral topic. The main aim of this study is to know if Catholic school is effective in promoting higher values with regards to girls' attitude and behavior towards premarital sex. Establishing, propagating a kind of approach used by Catholic school would therefore incorporate values to students, thus minimizing problems regarding sex. The respondents are fourth year female students of St. Michael's Institute in Bacoor, Cavite, a Catholic school, aged 15 — 17 years old. The researcher chose Catholic school students because religious affiliation has effect in attitude formation of individual and the researcher believes that high religious orientation of the said school is a significant factor in her study. A questionnaire was constructed for getting the needed data to measure the correlation or relation between girls' attitude towards premarital sex and religious or values orientation brought by Catholic school. The researcher made use of questionnaire in gathering pertinent data. The domains included in the said questionnaire are: sexual knowledge, personal and other people 's attitude towards PMS, religious practices, Catholic school orientation and other influential factors. The hypotheses, which includes the relation of personal attitude towards premarital sex to religious practices, Catholic school orientation, media, parents and peer influence were tested using Pearson product correlation. All of the respondents agree that their school promotes high values. It is expected to have high standards of moral values because it is said to be a Catholic school, a school having high religious orientation. Respondents were asked what makes a Catholic school apart from non- Catholic schools. The correlation of religious practices to attitude towards PMS was computed. The statements given about premarital sex attitude and sexual behavior were firmly negated by these senior Catholic school students. A Pearson product correlation of +0.253473 was obtained from relation of influence of peers and personal attitude towards premarital sex. Moreover, the Pearson product correlation of media influence and personal attitude towards premarital sex was also computed. The parental influence or the parent's perception about premarital sex and personal attitude of students towards PMS had a negative Pearson product correlation. As stated earlier, Catholic school is still effective in promoting high values. A cross-tabulation of PMS attitude and school values shows that all respondents agree that their school promotes high values and most of them are either conservative or very conservative. But, no correlation occurred between Catholic school orientation and personal attitude towards premarital sex. It may influence the student's life decisions but it does not follow that as Catholic school orientation increases, the attitude of girls towards premarital sex also tend to be more conservative. The conclusion drawn from the findings 1s that Catholic school is still effective in promoting higher values. The study did not only focused on school as the primary influence on girls' perception about premarital sex. Many influential factors, the peer influence as the strongest influence, affect the girl's attitude and behavior towards premarital sex To sum it up, fourth year high school female students are still conservative when it comes to premarital sex attitudes. Many influential factors such as religious practice, peers, parental influences, media, and catholic school orientation affect their attitudes towards premarital sex. Of all the influential factors, Catholic school orientation and peers highly influences the girls. In general, despite the advent of globalization, Filipino high school girls have conservative outlook towards premarital sex.