No school is required, simply association.
--Srila Prabhupada
Why did Srila Prabhupada say that no school is required for girls? Srila Prabhupada was not implying that girls shouldn’t be educated. Girls are not meant to be kept in ignorance. Rather, they should be educated separately from boys. He explained that girls are meant to learn from their mothers and other female family members. They should learn the arts of cooking, making butter and other preparations from milk, cleaning, sewing, spinning, child-care, reading, writing, a little math, principles of religion and how to serve a husband nicely and remain chaste and devoted to the husband. Srila Prabhupada even suggested that we ladies and girls learn the sixty-four arts that were known and practiced by Srimati Radharani Herself. She is trying to make happy Krsna in so many ways, sixty-four arts: how to dance, how to cook, how to make peace, how to smile, and Krsna is captivated by Rädhäräni. (Philosophy Discussions with Syamasundara dasa, Thomas Huxley, etc.)
In retrospect, I realize now that I really had no need to go to school. In fact, I wasted a lot of time in school, and failed to learn all that I needed to know to serve a husband nicely. I could have learned practically everything I needed to know at home. If I had been brought up among Vaisnavas in Vedic society, in a joint family, I could have learned everything I needed to know by watching my mother, my aunts, my grandmothers, and other female relations.
Srila Prabhupada wrote in a letter to Chaya devi dasi in 1972: “You ask about marriage, yes, actually I want that every woman in the Society should be married. But what is this training to become wives and mothers? No school is required for that, simply association. A woman's real business is to look after household affairs, keep everything neat and clean, and if there is sufficient milk supply available, she should always be engaged in churning butter, making yogurt, curd, so many nice varieties, simply from milk. The woman should be cleaning, sewing, like that. So if you simply practice these things yourselves and show examples, they will learn automatically, one doesn't have to give formal instruction in these matters.” If I had been brought up in a joint family in India, say, a hundred years ago, I could have learned all the domestic arts at home, and after marrying, taken spiritual instruction from my husband.
But unfortunately, this is not what took place. Because, due to my past karma, I was brought up in America in the nineteen-fifties and -sixties, in a non-Vaisnava family, forced by law to be away from my mother for at least eight hours every weekday and from the rest of my female relations (aunts and grandmothers) by the nuclear-family-syndrome of modern western society, I wasted many years learning things that I have never needed to apply in my life.
Srila Prabhupada teaches that the main, most important duties of a girl are to serve her husband by cooking for him, cleaning his house, and keeping him happy and satisfied in every respect. Girls can learn at home how to do these things, remaining protected in the loving environment of their father’s house. Then, before they are old enough to feel sexual desire, they can be betrothed to a nice Vaisnava boy who will later give them spiritual instruction. “Woman is to follow the husband. That's all. The husband will give instruction to the wife. There is no such thing as the girl should go to school…That is not Vedic system. Vedic system is a man is fully instructed, and woman, girl, must be married to a man…every woman should be married…And she would get instruction from the husband. This is Vedic system.” (SB 1.3.13 lecture, LA 9/18/72)
I feel the same way. Thank you for writing about this important topic!
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