pitrÄ dattÄ devayÄnyai
Å›armiá¹£á¹hÄ sÄnugÄ tadÄ
svÄnÄá¹ tat saá¹…kaá¹aá¹ vÄ«ká¹£ya
tad-arthasya ca gauravam
devayÄnÄ«á¹ paryacarat
strÄ«-sahasreṇa dÄsavat
pitrÄ - by the father; dattÄ - given; devayÄnyai - unto DevayÄnÄ«, the daughter of ÅšukrÄcÄrya; Å›armiá¹£á¹hÄ - the daughter of VṛṣaparvÄ; sa-anugÄ - with her friends; tadÄ - at that time; svÄnÄm - of his own; tat - that; saá¹…kaá¹am - dangerous position; vÄ«ká¹£ya - observing; tat - from him; arthasya - of the benefit; ca - also; gauravam - the greatness; devayÄnÄ«m - unto DevayÄnÄ«; paryacarat - served; strÄ«-sahasreṇa - with thousands of other women; dÄsa-vat - acting as a slave.
In the beginning of these affairs concerning Åšarmiá¹£á¹hÄ and DevayÄnÄ«, we saw that Åšarmiá¹£á¹hÄ had many friends. Now these friends became maidservants of DevayÄnÄ«. When a girl married a ká¹£atriya king, it was customary for all her girlfriends to go with her to her husband’s house. For instance, when Vasudeva married DevakÄ«, the mother of Kṛṣṇa, he married all six of her sisters, and she also had many friends who accompanied her. A king would maintain not only his wife but also the many friends and maidservants of his wife. Some of these maidservants would become pregnant and give birth to children. Such children were accepted as dÄsÄ«-putra, the sons of the maidservants, and the king would maintain them. The female population is always greater than the male, but since a woman needs to be protected by a man, the king would maintain many girls, who acted either as friends or as maidservants of the queen. In the history of Kṛṣṇa’s household life we find that Kṛṣṇa married 16,108 wives. These were not maidservants but direct queens, and Kṛṣṇa expanded Himself into 16,108 forms to maintain different establishments for each and every wife. This is not possible for ordinary men. Therefore although the kings had to maintain many, many servants and wives, not all of them had different establishments.