Not too long ago, a devotee who doesn’t allow commenting on his blog, posted a vague story about priests falling down with nuns. His point was that male and female interaction should be restricted, lest it would lead to complete degradation of our society. But, if you look at the way women, married couples and children are treated in our society, I’d say we’re already well entrenched in our degradation. I’d like to assume he meant that this restriction should be between folks practicing celibacy (institutionalized renunciates), but that very restrictive philosophy has far-reaching effects.

For example, 1995, a year when I was dating the girl who was to become my wife (and shortly thereafter, my ex-wife). We were known for our arguments and nearly constant fighting. Definitely not a situation where you’d expect a marriage to happen naturally. And most definitely not the situation where you’d literally force a marriage to take place. Yet, that was what happened. “What would the Indians think if they saw an unmarried couple working together?” they said. We were new and foolishly did it. If we had waited, we would have been able to tell it wasn’t good. But instead, because of these restrictions, we were forced to marry and got divorced less than a year later.

At that same time, New Vrndavana’s favorite guru was playing match maker, setting up four or five couples based on whimsy, even breaking up couples who were courting of their own freewill. He said, “This is not high school! There is no dating in Krishna consciousness!” He forced these marriages and all of them failed. Most very badly. Oddly enough, the only marriage to survive from that era was one that was not arranged or forced. It was forbidden and yet the couple is still together and very well respected today.

And even if a couple somehow manages to get themselves into a normal marriage, the pressure of these restrictions doesn’t vanish. For the men, social pressures dictate that we “have” to be the head of the house, that our women, now basically our pets, know their places. If there’s too much familiarity, we’re seen as weak or yoni-whipped. If we let on that we merely like our wives, we’re looked down upon. And for the women, they must put up with neglect, abuse (emotional, physical and sexual), harassment and basically being seen as a lower species all under the glorious banner of “subservience.” And if they speak up, they’re automatically branded a feminist, a term that is looked down upon even more than “abuser.”

So I must beg to ask this Bhakta, where is the proof that this restriction plan of ours works? Where is the proof that arranged and forced marriages is a good thing? Where is the proof that the wife being subservient isn’t completely dysfunctional?

The divorce rate in ISKCON is upwards of 90%! In the “karmi world,” it is around 50%. Also, in the “karmi world,” the karmis think 50% is staggeringly high! These people we see as malechas and yavanas are trying to find ways to bring their divorce rate down. But in ISKCON it seems we’re trying to find ways at keeping a system in place that has handed us our 90% divorce rate. Nine out of ten marriages fail in ISKCON and nobody seems to be questioning why.

These are the actual results of our “restricting of the sexes” idea. This is what that policy has wrought. We have a society full of devotees who are afraid to feel, afraid to love, afraid to speak their minds, afraid to take control of their own lives (no matter how abused they are) all because we’re taught that all of that is maya, that we all have our places and if we don’t remain in our places, we’re not following Srila Prabhupada, we’re ignoring Krishna and we’re not devotees.

So please, tell me how this is working. Show me. I’ve been through this. I have many friends who have been through this. Please, show us how this is a good idea.

He ends with the question: “Do we want this [the falling down of the celibate classes] to happen in ISKCON?” My answer is “yes.” If it puts an end to this vicious cycle of abuse and neglect, the sacrificing of a few brahmacaris/inis and sanyasis is well worth it. Maybe then we could stop being so debilitatingly repressed, get out of each others bedrooms and start being devotees again.