No government is helping us. They are increasing brothels, drinking. At least in India there was no drinking propaganda. Now the government is making that. They are opening wine shop. India, even in the British period, drinking was very, very restricted. Very, very restricted. First of all socially if anyone drinks, he is rejected as gentleman. A drunkard was never respected. Similarly meat-eaters. He was considered third-class man. In our childhood we have seen, when people learned to eat meat, very secretly, not within the house. Outside the house with some Muhammadan cooker. It was considered very abominable to eat meat, to drink.

And women, they were kept strictly under the vigilance of parents, father. Young girls not to mix with any young boy. If one young girl goes out of home and does not come back at night, then her life is finished. Nobody will marry her. So the father had to keep the young girls with great care. And the father was very, very anxious to find out a boy to hand it over. We have seen in our childhood. But now these things are slackened. Jawaharlal Nehru, our late prime minister, introduced divorce law. Now the society is in chaotic condition.

Srila Prabhupada, in a conversation with Director of Research of the Dept. of Social Welfare — May 21, 1975, Melbourne