The role of lust and sexual desire in family life

Devotees often speak about family life in terms of sexual desire. The idea is often that if one has sexual desire he or she should get married, and if doesn't, there is no need for it. Is it true?

When devotees speak about family life they frequently speak in terms of sexual desire. The idea is often that if one has sexual desire he or she should get married, and if doesn't, there is no need for family life.

There is much more to it, however. This habit of equating the need for family life with the need for sex is actually the source of many problems that plague our movement and lead to many divorces.

The main question is that every soul needs relationships. That's why the position in the impersonal brahmajyoti is not stable: that's the place where there are no relationships. A soul may stay for a long time there, but eventually, the need for relationships brings him back to the material world.

Souls who are very advanced in the path of self-realization can satisfy this need for relationships in the spiritual platform, cultivating a relationship with Krsna in one of His innumerable forms and with His pure devotees. This is the eternal position of the soul, therefore when a soul reaches this stage he or she becomes fully satisfied and doesn't need the relationships from this material world. Such a soul may either follow the path of renunciation or enter into family life with the purpose of giving example, like in the cases of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thākura or Srila Prabhupada.

Souls who are not so advanced can be divided into two categories. The first category is the souls who don't have yet awakened a personal relationship with Krsna and thus need to cultivate relationships in this material world. This is the case of most of us. Without relationships we are not stable, we become unhappy and this hampers our service to Krsna. Marriage is important in this connection because that's the place where we can cultivate relationships, being surrounded by the spouse, children, family members, and so on. This environment offers us an opportunity to develop the relationships we need, but in connection with Krsna. It offers us the opportunity of achieving a stable platform from which we can learn and progress.

Another category is composed of souls who are on the path of asceticism, being frustrated with life in this material world. They still didn't awakened their personal relationship with Krsna but are able to control their desires through austerity and renunciation. The problem with this path is that it can make one's heart quite dry. Most impersonalists try to achieve liberation through this path. Some Vaishnavas also do, but for us, it is a risky path, because if the heart becomes hard it becomes very difficult to relate to Krsna on a personal level, which can easily lead to impersonalism.

The scriptures equate family life with sex life in quite a few passages, but it's important to understand that the word "kama" used in this connection has a broader meaning than the word "sex". Kama applies to all kinds of material attraction, including material prosperity, family relationships, and so on. Sex is just a small part of it.

The word kāma is usually translated as "lust". Sometimes the word lust is used in the sense of sexual desire (lasciviousness), but it has also the connotation of an intense desire (eagerness, enthusiasm) or to describe intense longing (craving). One can thus be lusty for a pizza or ice cream, or even lusty for knowledge. When we adopt this broader definition for the word "lust", it becomes closer in significance to the word "kāma".

It's said that women are 9 times lustier than men. This doesn't mean necessarily that they have 9 times more sexual desire (men are frequently more into sex than women), but simply that their impulse in enjoying matter is stronger. The nine times stronger lust is manifested in things like eating, dressing, decorating the body, attracting attention, and so on.

The problem is that when these varieties of lust are applied outside of family life, they very quickly become problematic. A married woman dressing to keep her husband attracted to her is not bad, but a woman dressing in a provocative way to attract the attention of men is usually not so positive. Similarly, the lust for eating good food can be used to prepare quality food for the family, the lust for living in a beautiful place can be used to keep the house organized, and so on. Similarly, the sexual attraction of a man is used positively when he has a wife and the desire to beget a few children, but can be very destructive outside this context. When one has very strong lust and is not properly trained to use it in the context of family life, he or she can fall into very dangerous traps.

At a lower level, family life is the institution where lust can be engaged in a positive way, which is not contradictory to the development of Krsna Consciousness, avoiding the dangerous world of promiscuous relationships. At a higher level, family life is the field where we can learn to care about others and reduce our selfishness, two factors that are extremely important for our spiritual progress.

As we can see, the question is much more complex and it deals with factors that hide very deep into our consciousness. When we deal with the problem in an immature way, presenting family life as a mere process for satisfying sexual desire, we promote an immature attitude that can lead to all sorts of problems, leading to problematic relationships, unstable families, and divorces that can erode the very foundations of our spiritual communities.