"Mohammed married nine women, and he made it a rule for every Mohammedan to marry at least four women. Not to marry four was falling below the Mohammedan concept of right; marrying more was good. A strange thing it appears to us, but it was really right in Mohammed's time – that was the proportion between men and women in Arabia: four women, one man. The reason for this strange proportion was because men were continually fighting and killing each other, and it was thought unmanly to kill a woman. So women were surviving and men were dying.

"When in a society there are four women to one man there is bound to be trouble, great trouble: only one woman is going to get a husband. The other three women are going to sabotage the marriage in every possible way. They will become prostitutes, and there will be so much jealousy and so much conflict. To avoid this, Mohammed made a moral rule – but it is applicable only in that circumstance.

"Now, Mohammedans marrying several wives in other countries are simply stupid, because circumstances have changed. Now even in Arabia the proportion is equal: one man to one woman. It seems that once a certain rule is accepted, people become so much addicted to it they completely forget in what circumstance the rule was made.

"It was perfectly okay in Mahavira's time in India to allow millions of sannyasins to be celibate. It was something not only moral but, they thought, spiritual too. But if you look into the mechanism of the concept it becomes very clear.

"In Mahavira's time women were fewer, men were more. The reason was that many tribes in India in those days used to kill girls when they were born, just to avoid the trouble of raising them and then getting them married. It was such a trouble, because girls could be married only if you gave enough money, land with the girl to the man whom she was going to marry – unless the girl was exceptionally beautiful, which was rarely the case. And people were so poor, they could not afford to have one dozen girls. It was simply impossible for them to manage."