Child-free and Krishna Consciousness

Are children always part of family life, or can a couple do without them?

A common question for newlyweds and young devotees considering getting married: Can couples in our movement remain without children, or are children obligatory in family life? This is at the same time a very simple and very complicated question.

On the one hand, children are the normal thing to do in family life. Couples have been begetting children since the beginning of creation and we don't see people regretting it. Quite the opposite, children are always seen as a source of happiness for the couple and everyone around them. On the other hand, there are many passages of the scriptures that speak negatively about family life and attachment for children. And this may cause many doubts.

In this context, it is important to understand that these passages were written for renunciants who, after completing their duties in family life, are preparing themselves to leave this world. Srila Prabhupada explains that his books are like a drugstore, where we can find the cures for all diseases. However, we need to be wise enough to select the proper medicine and use it in the proper dose. Just like the wrong medicine in the wrong dose can put one's life at risk, the wrong instructions at the wrong time can cause serious problems on one's spiritual path. The scriptures offer different processes for different people in different ways and stages of life. We should remember that there are four varnas and four asramas, apart from the outcasts and other groups, and the scriptures include instructions for all of them. There are even instructions for the ones who want to drink liquor or eat meat! The right instructions to follow will be dependent not only on one's situation but on one's mentality and spiritual life. What is medicine for one can be poison to the other.

Many problems we faced in our movement in the past were precisely caused by people misunderstanding the scriptures and applying the wrong spiritual principles. No passage of the scriptures can be applied without consideration for the particular time and circumstance. Not only do different instructions apply to different types of people, but different instructions apply at different stages of one's life.

In this way, the first point is to be careful to follow the right instructions that apply to family life. When we carefully study the scriptures we see that children are the natural result of sex life and that they are beneficial for a couple. People enter into family life seeking happiness, but mistakenly they look for this happiness in sex life, which actually just brings problems in the long run. The happiness people seek in family life is actually not in sex life, but in raising one's children. Srila Prabhupada mentions (quoting Cāṇakya Paṇḍita) that putra-hīnaṁ gṛhaṁ śūnyam: if a family man has no son, his home is no better than a desert.

The Srimad Bhagavatam in itself is a very long description of a genealogic tree, that culminates with the appearance of Lord Krsna Himself. In a sense, Srimad Bhagavatam is all about family life. There are many stories of couples who practice austerities, like Kardama Muni and Devahuti, and Sutapa and Prsni, who practiced great austerities after getting married. What we should notice however was that the result of such austerities was to beget a son who was either an incarnation of God or a pure devotee. Kardama Muni and Devahuti begot Lord Kapila, while Sutapa and Prsni begot Prsnigarbha. Krsna Himself begets children when He enters family life to give us the example.

Couples that just beginning is spiritual life may beget a child, or a few children right after getting married, and these children will help them to be happy and gradually become free of sexual desire and thus advance in Krsna Consciousness, while couples who are more spiritually advanced may practice austerities for some time after marriage, with the goal of advancing spiritually and later begetting an advanced devotee, who will help them to advance further. We can see that in both cases the children are beneficial in the long run. Of course, children also demand time and effort, but it is the same for anything one wants to do in life.

Srila Prabhupada mentioned privately in conversations that two devotees may get married with the purpose of just preaching together, forming a "preaching team". We can see that there were cases of disciples of Srila Prabhupada who married with this purpose, like Ananta-Santi Prabhu and mother Mandakini, but these are very rare cases. In most cases, couples marry out of desire, and the idea of being a preaching team ends up becoming just an excuse. In due time, these couples may divorce, or just mature a little and become regular couples, like everyone else.

The conclusion is that, theoretically, couples can avoid sex life and dedicate their lives to just preaching Krsna Consciousness in rare cases, but successes on this path are so rare that this is more like a theoretical possibility than a practical alternative. Theoretically, someone can live 100,000 years by practicing meditation, but who of us can do it?

When it comes down to practice, there are basically two paths for a couple: to beget a child shortly after getting married, or to practice celibate for some time, continue to do services, visit holy places, and associate with advanced devotees for some time after marriage, with the purpose of advancing spiritually and begetting an enlightened child later on. Unless one is free from sexual desire, one should not try to avoid children in family life, since children are the opportunity Krsna gives us to control such sexual desire.
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Another path is for a couple to act like a normal couple and have sex, but prevent pregnancy using contraceptives or other means, but this path is considered sinful and thus not very recommended. It means to misuse the situation, enjoying the privileges without also performing the duties. It will not be positive for one's spiritual life and will just bring unhappiness in the long run. Prabhupada alerts us against it.

There is also another situation, perhaps even more troubling, which is when one of the partners has the need for sexual life, while the the other doesn't want to provide it, for diverse reasons. An example is when the wife wants children, but the man tries to avoid the responsibility, or when on the opposite, the man wants sex life with his wife and is ready to take care of the children, while the wife for different reasons tries to avoid it. It may superficially look like one is more advanced than the other and therefore is not interested in sex life, but this is rarely the case.

Both situations are based on the logic of maintaining the part of the chicken that gives eggs, but cutting off the part that creates expenditures by eating grains. It is based on the same principle of enjoying the privileges while avoiding the related duties. A lady may be happy in being maintained by a man but may be not interested in relating to him in an intimate way and taking care of his children, and similarly, a man may be happy in accepting service from his wife but be reluctant in giving her children out of fear of dealing with the responsibility. In other words, the real reason is often not renunciation, but irresponsibility or selfishness. Often this may also mask infidelity, since the wife or husband may refuse just because there is no love for the partner. In eighter case, more often than not such marriages end up in divorce.

Unfortunately, often we enter into family life with a selfish attitude, failing to realize that family life is precisely the institution created by Krsna to get rid of such selfishness.