Rūpānuga: Comparatively recent. Because for many years the Catholic Church forbade it. When did it begin?
Pradyumna: Henry the Eighth, the King of England.
Prabhupāda: Oh, he's the rascal.
Pradyumna: He had many wives, he wanted to divorce his wife and he could not under Catholic Church, so he started his own church, Church of England.
Prabhupāda: Because many wives were not allowed?
Hari-śauri: No, they had a system, one wife, but he got fed up with them. He chopped off the heads of two of them and then... It was considered a bit outrageous. So then he wanted to divorce and have another wife after the third or fourth one.
Prabhupāda: So he used to cut them, the head?
Hari-śauri: Yes, two of them he did. And then the Catholic Church excommunicated him.
Prabhupāda: Therefore in Vedic civilization they keep, they have more than one wife. So what is the use of killing? Why one should kill? We find from the history, Dhruva Mahārāja's mother and stepmother, there were some critical words, and Dhruva Mahārāja became very, very angry. So the critical words and wives, different wives, that may be, but why one should cut off the head? Dhruva Mahārāja's mother said when Dhruva Mahārāja began to cry before the mother, mother said "My dear child, what can I do? How can I help you? Your father does not care for me, even as maidservant, what to speak of I am queen, I am the senior queen. So this gentleman does not care of me even as maidservant.