Prabhupāda: Woman should stay under the father, under the husband, and under the elderly sons. Nothing more. Therefore it is the duty of the father to give her in charge of a young man when she is young. This is Vedic culture.
Viśvambhara: She's asking what should a woman do if she is alone?
Prabhupāda: She cannot be alone. Na sataritatam satanta tarameti? ananti. Woman should not be allowed . . . just like children. Children cannot be alone. They must taken care of. Similarly a woman, in childhood, should be taken care of by the father; when she's young, she should be taken care of by the husband; and when she's old, she should be taken care of by elderly sons. You'll find in the Vedic literature, the father's responsibility is until she's handed over to a suitable young man. And the husband's responsibility is so long she hasn't got elderly children. At that time, when she has got elderly children, he can leave home and take sannyāsa. So the process is a woman is kept under protection always. There is no independence for woman. That is . . . still, in India it is going on. The father is obliged to find out a suitable husband for the daughter and give her in his charge. Then his responsibility finished. Until that, she is . . . he's responsible to take care of the daughter. Unmarried girls to remain always under the protection of the father.
Yogeśvara: But today there seem to be so few qualified husbands.
Woman Devotee: And fathers, too.
Prabhupāda: Because you do not train the boys to be qualified. You train them to become debauch. What can be done? You train them from brahmacārī, then they'll be responsible husbands. Both the girls and the boys should be trained up. Then they'll be responsible husband and wife and live peacefully. In their young days, if you give them freedom, they'll spoil. What can be done?
Viśvambhara: Give them what?
Bhagavān: Freedom.
Prabhupāda: Young, youthful days, if you give them full freedom, they'll be misguided and spoiled.
Viśvambhara: She's asking that since in these Western countries the families are so broken up and the women sometimes cannot find a qualified husband, what should she do?
Prabhupāda: That, here is the society. You train them. You have got all children. You train them in that way, so that they . . . whatever is done is done. Now you can make very good society, Kṛṣṇa conscious society. Not that one mistake has been done, you should continue. Rectify it. The difficulty is the modern society, the leaders, they do not know the aim of life. They are blindly doing everything like animals. Their philosophy is like the animals—eat, drink, be merry and enjoy, that's all. This is the philosophy of the animals. And human philosophy is to understand first of all, "What I am? I am this body or something else?" That is human life. But nobody questions this. There is no institution to teach this science, therefore the whole human society is misguided. Just like if I want to train my boy to become a medical man, then I teach him biology, botany, similarly, because I know I shall make my boy a medical man. Similarly, we should know what is the aim of human life. Then we have to construct the social, political, everything, favorable to that end. But they do not know what is the aim of life. That is the whole mistake. I think that in Bible there is a story, prodigal son? So we are prodigal son. We are all sons of God; now we have become prodigal sons. What is the meaning of prodigal?
Jayatīrtha: I'll look it up.
Prabhupāda: "Without any responsibility," is it not? Do whatever you like.
Viśvambhara: Run away from the protection of the family.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is our position, that we are sons of God; we have given up protection of God. God is protecting in all circumstances.