'No young man wanted a second hand woman'- Cromwell Smith
"Our culture, our values began to change. We were shown the American dating and mating process. We thought it to be more 'civilised' and 'sensible,' after all it was best to try out a few women and men (as many as you could) before making that lifelong commitment," Mr Smith noted in a Facebook discussion on September 16, 2019.
'Cats running like dogs' - Smith
The genesis of the conversation stemmed from an earlier discussion about what should be preserved in VI culture and what should be discarded. Mr Smith underscored that by the time he became eligible for marriage, "cats were running the streets like dogs. If you get my drift," he said.
"We must examine the history of our culture to determine what and if any aspects of it were harmful and what of the good aspects of it can be brought forward and practised today," he said in another post.
However, it was during his explanation of that aspect, ms Smith referred to unwed women who got pregnant, as a "second hand," a term now frowned upon as offensive and derogatory.
"And if the community was unable to get the boy and girl married [a shotgun wedding] the girl would have difficulty finding a husband....no young man wanted a second-hand woman with another man child and that child became frowned upon - a 'bastard'," he said.
According to Smith, in the past, that cultural custom that came from that value was that if a boy wanted to have a steady public girlfriend he had to write to the girl’s parents for permission, hence preventing the occurrence of 'Second hand' women.
He illustrated, however, that this has all changed with the times as VI culture continues to change and erode.
'Courting' was also used as a form of parental approval, he said, "coming after parental investigation and interview- allowed the young man to go to the young lady’s home to visit (going-home) and allowed the limited display of public affection."
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25 Responses to “'No young man wanted a second hand woman'- Cromwell Smith”
Are we property?
We ( women) make that decision via the way we present ourselves.Even with changing times,men,in general are selective with the women they choose to honour with marriage.
Tired of Cromwell and his out of date views.
In my life in the VI, I have legitimately heard men blame girls for being too fast and blame their parents for not watching them. Usually I hear everyone being blamed except the man. Yes, I said man because it's usually a grown man and a young girl and not two teenagers getting into things they shouldn't. Not saying that there isn't any blame to be had for women but how can society get anywhere when there is clearly a bias against and disrespect for women going on? When there are men who clearly don't think they have any responsibility in this? We are talking about making a human life, bringing a child into the world and there are men out there who don't care about the harm they do. They don't even care about their own mental health and welfare because one would have to make themselves very cold and callous to just go around having children and neglecting the. That's not good for the spirit at all.
And then we get to where we are now, hearing these tired, sexist classics. News to the unenlightened, it takes two. Both women and men will have to start respecting each other. Society needs to start calling out the BS that happens instead of turning a blind eye to it. Parents need to make sexual education and future life planning a part of their family norm.
I suspect that because a lot of people have children out of wedlock or they themselves were born out of wedlock, parents might find it difficult to talk to their kids about the importance of having children in marriage and having an intact family. They might see it as an admission of guilt or shame, or calling their life or kids a mistake. I don't see it that way. We all have lots of learning and growing to do. No one is less of a person for how they were conceived but at the same time there are benefits to having two parents acting as one verses having only one parent, especially if the second parents is just negligent or malicious.
As for the old fashion way of asking a parent's permission. I like the modern way. Adults should be free to make their own decisions. What parents should do is legitimately sit with their kids while they are teenagers and have an honest conversation about what they want in life. Parents already do this in terms of education and jobs but add the spiritual and corporeal aspect in there too. Don't assume you know your kids, talk to them and find out where their moral compass is. Just talk to them about what to expect, how to treat people and who they should be treated and not to settle for less. Make sure they have standards and hold them up to it. This applies to both the sexes. Sex is normal and it can be pleasurable but there's a responsibility that comes with being sexually active. Make sure your kids grow up to be adults who understand that and are willing to shoulder the responsibilities fo their actions.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t comment on things written about me in the online media. However because I believe that our discussion about culture, particularly Virgin Islands culture is so important I have decided to clarify the misrepresentations in this article. Those who have read my post know what I wrote and in what context it was written.
The opening paragraph of the article is totally inaccurate.
Of course I never referred to women who got children out of wedlock as “second hand women” I would have been certifiably insane to have done that. I was merely pointing out that when I was growing up the young men in the society thought that way. It was a cultural designation among young men when they thought of getting married.
I was not making a judgement I was pointing out some aspects of our historical culture. I hoping that this article doesn’t lead us down a path of male female social issues. We have been celebrating our culture focusing mostly on our Arts and Artifacts. I am trying to point out some of the important values of those times that with some tweaking ( to eliminate gender bias for example) could have value today in the spirit of the old African concept of Sankofa (getting the best from our past to shape a better present and future.
Thank you for clarifying yourself. However, I stand by my previous post. My intent was to point out that the men who thought so lowly of women were the same men doing lowly things to women. They were creating the very same 'second hand women' they looked down upon. What family in the VI doesn't have at least one story of some male relative of theirs creating children outside their marriage and then disowning them? What family doesn't have at least one male adulterer?
For a long time, men have limited their perception of the value of women to purely sexual. The history of our society is littered with hypocrisy and compliance in wrongful acts. Our Christian parents, grandparents and great-grandparents should have known better because the Bible has stated what is expected. However, it makes no sense to dwell on the past because we can't change the past but we can change how we think and act now in hopes that the future generations are better than us.
I think teaching accountability, responsibility, forethought and respect is a good step in the right direction.
Greetings, I don't believe you were really misrepresented here. It's just that people tend to run with headlines and not read. The context of what you were saying is that the dating scene has changed so much, second-hand women are not so much frowned upon.
But I agree, I don't believe you are passing judgment and completely understand. But these news websites just like bate people with headlines to get them to read but they never actually read the articles. These are some good points you make and definitely a conversation that needs to be had.
Mr.Cromwell, we have decided, you are a bl*** m*** p**. you honestly sit and call Women second hand. Your race Mr.Cromwell is the number one race that is responsible for running off on their children. I suggest you start investing in some hair plugs for men.
Then You've Broken VI Woman Code: “She’s the Cat’s Mother”: Don’t Talk About She Meh Son!
By Tafari Zharr. All Rights Reserved. 11/20/2019
The audacity of what it looks like in these times to be a macho, macho man. It’s her body and she can do whatever she likes. Stereotypically, many people who feel that classes matter are the ones that are not class acts. There’s nothing new under the sun, and sexual scandal is no different. Jesus’ ancestor, take Rahab, a prostitute, literary character in the Bible would be “second class” person in BVI Society according to the op-ed (married Salmon, mother of Boaz, Boaz Married Ruth and had Obed who had Jesse, who is the father of David… and Jacob had Joseph the husband of Mary...who had Jesus (it’s more births in between. The point is women have babies, the other point is, if men had to be virtuous to get or keep elevated status, we will not have some of the noteworthier men and women Virgin Islanders for forgiving or respecting – which one of us is without sin; voluntarily or involuntarily. If I may be absurd, opposites attract: therefore hello “vagrant Va Ginas meet perfect Pen Is.” The society that claims to be super religious would look down upon Rehab
Seriously, I grew up hearing empty vessels make the most noise: the sorrow of your piece leaves distant drums beating heavily in the heat beyond the prance of August Mondays years ago. It reminds me of a call to arms for culture which were it not for a few veteran locals the traditions of yesteryear past would have ended were it not for the participation of immigrants actively participating whilst locals partake as bystanders; this is likened to the “second class” women you featured.
Oh, but for these manly cultivated biros in a new feminist world? Why are outlandish social ills of many women tied to the ribcages and wills of many men whose: backbones, spirits, will power, resolves, sex drives, motivations, last names, and restraint are neither tied to sumptuousness nor nature’s little secrets as relates to island life? “Second Class” roles given to those “who loved you and leaved you” yet stayed for fear that they could not go for need to save face; being the “materfamilias” generation after generation; many of these “second” class acts children were shipped back to wear the mothers are from.
As, the pomposity of culture impregnated with the ethos and mediocrities of some narrow-minded men with loose limbs and instant gratification unclothed as “undertakings and understandings”. Perhaps the writer doesn’t appreciate how permissiveness is a surplus to a norm and that embarrassment is intertwined in “Yes” and “No” too soft whispered in defiance against truth only to be barely heard under the clamor and taste of freedom so pushed back against perpetuated fraud upon victims that undressed or shaken a woman may never have stood a chance in her outcome; A “second” class - A conviction for deportation! A paycheck, a roof over her head, children that need her because of unforgiven sex.
Sex needs strength, but it is not as powerful as the rising of a woman in the hour she seeks to give birth – there’s honor in that! Yet control conquers her and she is never “allowed” to be as you have proven to be – as powerful as one whose intention it was not to obdurately speak and scold, speak and scold, of women en bloc; You, in your muddying of Virgin Islands culture would seek to, even in obscure moments of objectivity, callously augment the denigration of women – hence, perpetuating a stained falsehood within the lens via instant media, extended upon unattractive frames that fails to peruse the torment upon women before it reaches into the psyche, before its hew of contrasted pigments with tints of atonement for him whose rhapsody has already been confirmed “Yahweh took her from the rib of Adam- what more do men want for one rib?
An op-ed leaning towards a vexed view. How dare you ignore our very own VI Code: She’s the Cat’s Mother: Don’t talk about she meh son”; when you talk about someone’s mother you tell on your own. Thank goodness that women are doing what women do creating art with a blank canvas, and turning distressed situations into blessed ones, every year, every month, every day, and right now. Having said that, the Affliction of the Scorned, “Scarlet lettered woman” has nothing to do with the roles of motherhood or womanhood, or gender if I can add. Many wives have become “second” class in their own homes by virtue of being “good” whilst their spouses trodden upon their virtues (and vice versa) So, what does the writer think, many women who have been prevented from elevating themselves in our society; ask again “but if it were not for the grace of God how some of these married mothers, sisters, aunts, cousins, friends, “island women” made it! Some of these very women transcend time, class, and defied the odds of their circumstances and lived long enough to celebrate their “second” class daughters; Thank God for not a society’s life, but a mother’s L O V E.
Regardless of how we see ourselves, there's the factor of how we want to be seen as a people, but your panoramic view leaves a dim onesided view: notably, the economic standing, the social class.no one is immune from the perils, pride, and joy that comes from consequential happy endings that bloom.
For this quite enthusiastic abstract to be given any concrete credence it hoped for, a reader would have to 1. entertain that women were second class in the BVI because of their sexuality and/or freewill, 2. That women might have become subjective to being labelled “second” class in the first place. What is the indiscretions disparity among women in “second” class versus “first” class as relates to matronly women and are they too having pre/extra-marital affairs? The Op-Ed piece is subjective in itself and premise skewed in favor of the self-righteous, perfect, and judgmental individual. Life in the BVI has never truly been that way – and certainly it is never been a way of life that I witnessed. VI women are kind treasures: they are proud, prayerful, and present; life throws them curve balls and they play; marriage give them unfaithful spouses and they dig in: plough the land, knead the dough, care for the cough, and clean the homes and the trough
Perhaps the “op-ed” did a dis-service to the community (traditional or modern). Individuals should operate from an accountability stand point and society has to evolve through norms, laws and policy to correct the wrongs and injustices so that innocence, wellbeing, and welfare of children are gold standard; not what a woman did or didn’t do that caused her not to be married. Lightbulb moment: All married women are not happy! All married men are not faithful. Most individuals have conscience and I know lots of Virgin Islanders pain to be accountable for their own actions and morals, or circumstances – a woman getting pregnant is situational and personal; perhaps, in the superlative, because our society used to be tiny and our population small, with everyone either being related or close due to proximity in distance and social kinds, then in some stretched perception, given context to which the abstract is conceived it would be helpful to know how women were able to become subjects and the men not! What was the outcome desired behind the article?
I might implore if that side of the story is to be told then it has to be in conjunction with those many ineffable stories of tolerance of “Caribbeanites” and the stolen voices, silenced by promised work permits, jobs, and “stamped time” and local consummation by “Tola Tolerance”; and one may argue that women did not know any better, or not trying to conceive, was solely trying to survive, and it’s all purely environmental; if this is a social experiment, our reactions are indicative of things men should never talk about in public.
So, it was a different time, and Virgin Islands women of all ages and nationalities have been objectified, victimized, and abused; along with the ease and prevalence norm created by the male chauvinistic, his dominance and spoors in the sand; what the writer describes is a blaming and punishment of women in a society whose debacle has been its very own status quo. You’ve opened Pandora’s Box, so pray tell what role, moving forward, would you undertake on behalf of women to change things for Calamity Jane?
Conclusively, how things stand is one thing, and how things go is another. To say the least, the headliner itself is ebullient in nature and hastens a “meet and greet” with a burst of disfavor from many; the echoes from which the writer screams is at a crumbling past whose ships have sailed and whose quavering footprints deserve to be washed out to sea; if this is where BVI was when I was a girl, I did not know this place at its darkest. I'm relieved that the stories I can reflect upon are truly based upon real experiences; Oh the places I can go!
Soo what will you call the men? Ayoooo i saw I beginning to hate my own BVI people ya’ll does piss me the hell off! Especially that man! I would say some other mean stuff butttttttttttt.....i am sure his mother had a child an she wasn’t married
Wtf is this j**k a** talking about? He thinks of women as an object? You go out and buy a used or second hand vehicle. Is Cromwell Smith equating women to this? From the time he changed his name to something he can't pronounce , I knew he was crazy.. oh, Cromwell let me remind you that you are third hand.. When you don't have a sensible subject to talk about.