So nowadays, at the present moment, this cultural program . . . I am speaking of India and everywhere. There is no such cultural program. That cultural program, that program to beget nice children, the whole program is, we must know, the whole Vedic system is to give the human life the greatest chance of self-realization and get free from these material miseries. That is the whole program. It is not . . . the Vedic culture does not mean that we shall be like cats and dogs, simply eating, sleeping, mating and defending. No. The human society is a systematic program to give everyone the chance of getting free from this material miseries.
Just like every state is supposed to be welfare state. Every citizen of that state should be happy, should be prosperous. There should be no anxiety. I do not know if every state is taking care of the citizens in that way. People are always full of anxieties. They are creating situation that everyone is full of anxiety. This material world is made so that it is full of anxieties. Whoever is in the material world . . . even the bird, you will see, when it is taking some grains, he is also full of anxiety. He is looking like this and that, "Oh, somebody is coming or killing me." So this is the nature.
The human society, human society is so arranged that the people, the members of the human society, should be free from all anxieties. Therefore we require good citizens, good father and mother, good system of government, and pious, virtuous cooperation between God and nature. Everything will be helpful for my spiritual realization, for my self-realization. If I am full of anxiety, how can I make progress in spiritual realization? It is not possible.
Therefore it is the duty of the state, duty of the father, duty of the teacher, duty of the spiritual master to give chance to the small children to develop in such a way that he becomes fully realized spiritual soul at the end, and so that his miserable life in the material existence is over. That is the responsibility.
In Bhāgavata you will see that Ṛṣabhadeva says that "One should not become the spiritual master, one should not become the father, one should not become the mother, one should not become the husband who cannot give relief from these miseries of material existence". It is the husband's duty also. Because the wife is under the protection of the husband, he has got so much responsibility.
Woman class and children class, they are taken in the same category. They require protection. They require protection. That is the Manu-saṁhitā. Na striyaṁ svatantratām arhati. Women should be under the protection. They should be given all protection. So the system of taking . . . just like the Hindu system is . . . just like a girl, before attaining the age of puberty, she is handed over to a suitable boy to take charge before she gets youthful energy.
So this is the system of varṇāśrama-dharma. This is the system. The whole idea is that everyone should be given the chance of being liberated in this very life. No more waiting for again for further . . . another life. Who knows that I am going to be human being again? It may be by freaks of nature I become a cat, a dog, a cow, an animal.