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Marriage system
Fuller has commented that "The Nayars' marriage system has made them one of the most famous of all communities in anthropological circles", and Amitav Ghosh says that, although matrilineal systems are not uncommon in communities of the south Indian coast, the Nairs "have achieved an unparalleled eminence in the anthropological literature on matrilineality". None of the rituals survive in any significant way today. Two forms of ritual marriage were traditional:

There is much debate about whether the traditional Nair rituals fitted the traditional definition of marriage and which of thalikettu kalyanam or sambandham could lay claim to it. Thomas Nossiter has commented that the system "was so loosely arranged as to raise doubts as to whether 'marriage' existed at all."

Tharavad


Nairs operated a matrilineal (marumakkathayam) joint family structure called tharavad, whereby descendant families of one common ancestress lived under a single roof. Tharavads consisting of 50 to 80 members were not uncommon and some with membership as high as 200 have been reported. Only the women lived in the main house; men lived in separate rooms and, on some occasions, lived in a separate house nearby. The families split on instances when they became unwieldy and during crisis among its members. When it split, the family property was separated along the female lines. The karnavan, the oldest male member in the tharavad, had the decision making authority including the power to manage common property. Panikkar, a well-known writer from the Nair community, wrote in 1918 that,

The husband visited the tharavad at night and left the following morning and he had no legal obligation to his children which lay entirely with the mother's family. The wife of karnavan had an unusual relationship in his tharavad as she belonged to a different one and her interests lay there. Panikkar wrote that Karnavan loved his sister's son more than his own and he believes it was due mainly to the instability of Nair marriages.

Thalikettu kalyanam
The thali is an emblem shaped like a leaf and which is worn as a necklace. The wearing of it has been compared to a wedding ring as for most women in south India it denotes that they are married. The thalikettu kalyanam was the ritual during which the thali would be tied on a piece of string around the neck of a Nair girl. If the girl should reach puberty before the ceremony took place then she would in theory have been out-caste, although it is probable that this stricture was not in fact observed.

It has been noted that there were variations to the practice. Examples include that the person who tied the thali might be a close female relative, such as the girl's mother or aunt, and that the ceremony conducted by such people might take place outside a temple or as a small ceremony at the side of a more lavish thalikettu kalyanam rather than in the tharavadu. These variations were probably exceptional and would have applied to the poorest families.

Sambandham
Panikkar says that for Nairs the real marriage, as opposed to a symbolic one, was sambandham, a word that comes from Sanskrit and translates as "good and close union". The Nair woman had sambandham relationships with Brahmins as well as other Nairs. In the Malabar region, only the eldest male member of a Brahmin family was usually allowed to marry within their caste. There were some circumstances in which a younger male was permitted to do so, these being with the consent of the elder son or when he was incapable of marriage. This system was designed to protect their traditions of patrilineality and primogeniture. A consequence of it was that the younger sons were allowed to marry women from the highest subdivisions of the Nair caste. The Nair women could marry the man who had tied their thali, provided that he was not otherwise restricted by the rules that women were not permitted to marry a man from a lower caste or subdivision, nor to marry anyone in the direct matrilineal line of descent (however far back that may be) or close relatives in the patrilineal line, nor a man less than two years her senior.

The sambandham ceremony was simple compared to the thalikettu kalyanam, being marked by the gift of clothes (pudava) to the bride in front of some family members of both parties to the arrangement. There might also be other gifts, presented at the time of the main Malayam festivals. If the sambandham partner was a Brahmin man or the woman's father's sister's son (which was considered a proper marriage because it was outside the direct line of female descent) then the presentation was a low-key affair. However, sambandham rituals were more elaborate, sometimes including feasts. The ceremony took place on a day deemed to be auspicious by priests.

The sambandham relationship was usually arranged by the karanavan. The first sambandham of a man was deemed to be momentous and his ability to engage in a large number of such relationships increased his reputation in his community. Sambandham relationships could be broken, due to differences between the spouses or because a karavanan forced it due to being pressured by a man of higher rank who desired to marry the woman. Marriage by sambandham was neither legally recognised nor binding. The relationship could end at will and the participants could remarry without any ramifications.

Hypergamy
The Nambudiri Brahmin tradition which limited the extent of marriage within their own caste led to the practice of hypergamy. Gough notes that "These hypergamous unions were regarded by Brahmans as socially acceptable concubinage, for the union was not initiated with Vedic rites, the children were not legitimized as Brahmans, and neither the woman nor her child was accorded the rights of kin. By the matrilineal castes, however, the same unions were regarded as marriage, for they fulfilled the conditions of ordinary Nayar marriage and served to legitimize the child as an acceptable member of his matrilineal lineage and caste.""

The disparity in caste ranking in a relationship between a Brahmin man and a Nair woman meant that the woman was unable to live with her husband(s), or vice versa. The children resulting from such marriages always became Nairs. Panikkar argues that it is this type of relationship that resulted in the matrilineal and matrilocal system. Furthermore, that "... among the higher-ranking Nayars in contradistinction to the "commoner" Nayars, no two subdivisions admitted to equal status. Thus the relations set up by the tall-rite [ie: the thalikettu kalyanam] and the sambandham union were always hypergamous."

Although it is certain that in theory hypergamy can cause a shortage of marriageable women in the lowest ranks of a caste and promote upwards social movement from the lower Nair subdivisions, the numbers involved would have been very small. It was not a common practice outside the higher subcaste groups.

Polyandry
Fuller argues that there is overwhelming evidence that Nair women as well as men had more than one sambandham partner at the same time, that "both men and women could have several partners at once, and either party was free to break the relationship, for any reason or for none, whenever they wished."

He believes that both polyandrous sambandhams and hypergamy were most common in Central Kerala. In northern Travancore there appears not to have been as great a prevalence of hypergamy because of a relative scarcity of Brahmins living there. Fuller believes that in the relatively undocumented southern Travancore monogamy may have been predominant, and that although the matrilineal joint family still applied it was usually the case that the wife lived with the tharavad of her husband.

Gough has gone further than Fuller with regard to the interpretation of events in the north, believing that there is no evidence of polyandry in that area at all. She argues that all European travelogues describing polyandry came from the region of Central Kerala. Gough notes the differing personal experiences of earlier Nair commentators and that this could go some way to explaining the varied pronouncement: Panikkar, who queries the existence of polyandry, comes from the northern Travancore region; that A. Aiyappan, who acknowledges its existence, comes from Central Kerala; and that both have based their writings on customs they grew up with in their very different environs.