a form of preferential treatment

[Guest guest]

>

> RR: Taking food together was an important part of our life. It was not

> like in the West, where someone comes home and just fixes himself

> something from the fridge. For example, no lady would eat until after her

> husband had taken. Eating was a family event. There are still joint

> families where fifty or sixty people sit down at a certain time to eat

> together. (GOTIL, p131)

 

This is not really "taking food together". Rather "taking food

separately". First a husband eats. Then when he's finished, a

wife may get to start eating. NOT together.

 

But what's it really so important "part of our life" in having

your wife wait with eating until after you had taken? I thought,

if someone got to wait then rather the stronger members of the

family got to be "on the end of the line". So first children,

old people and women get the food. Then men.

 

I prefer to be taking the food *together* with my wife. What is

really the use of this particular "traditional Indian life", having

a wife not to eat together with her husband but only after he's

done??

 

 

- Mahanidhi das

[Guest guest]

In text 2889548 from COM Mahanidhi dasa wrote:

 

>> RR: Taking food together was an important part of our life. It was not

>> like in the West, where someone comes home and just fixes himself

>> something from the fridge. For example, no lady would eat until after

her

>> husband had taken. Eating was a family event. There are still joint

>> families where fifty or sixty people sit down at a certain time to eat

>> together. (GOTIL, p131)

 

> I prefer to be taking the food *together* with my wife. What is

> really the use of this particular "traditional Indian life", having

> a wife not to eat together with her husband but only after he's

> done??

 

My understanding is that Srila Prabhupada was ready to adapt to the customs

of Western civilization, and indeed he did it regularly. We all know that

he gave brahmin initiation to Westerners, personally carried out marriage

ceremonies for his disciples, allowed women to live in temples, and

sanctioned many other variations from the traditional Indian standards

(thank God!!!). Adaptations such as allowing murtis made of resin in the

temples and the use of the latest technology are evident proof of Srila

Prabhupada's conviction of turning everything favourably towards the realm

of Krsna Conciousness.

 

He also accepted that Western women play a much more active role in society

compared to Indian women and thus for example he never forbid them from

going out and distribute books or from personally worshipping the Dieties

in the temple. Western society is like that and acknowledging it won't

compromise the essential teachings of Krsna Conciousness or anyone's

potential for attaining love of Godhead.

 

Thus for many devotees in the Western world hearing about "chaste" ladies

not eating until after their husband and other male patriarchs in the

family finish their meal means absolutely nothing, and rightly so. It may

be nice that someone is compiling accounts of traditional Indian life. I am

sure that it has great anthropological value just as Marco Polo's book "The

Travels" (which by the way has some great insights into life in India in

the 13th Century). But this cannot be the standard to follow.

 

In Western civilization if the lady of the house is really a lady and if

the husband is a gentleman then both sit at the same table at the same

time, and eat the same food (except, of course, if she is on a diet). Only

a maid will wait on those sitting at the table. Waiting until the husband

finishes eating won't make the wife, or the husband, more Krsna concious

(except if she is so hungry that she keeps praying to Krsna that the lazy

bum finishes his dinner soon).

 

I think that we have to be careful to keep stories like the one quoted

above in the right context. ISKCON will be more irrelevant to the world

than what it is unfortunately becoming now if what it offers is a narrow

paradigm full of misconceptions while its tangible assets such as children,

cows, personal initiative, women, cultural diversity, etc., are being

neglected.

 

Your servant

Radha Krsna dasa

Mexico City