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MATRILINY AND DOMESTIC MORPHOLOGY: A STUDY OF THE NAIR TARAWADS OF MALABAR
Among the few matrilineal communities from around the world were the Nairs of the south-western coast, a1so known as the Malabar coast, of India. The system of matrilineal consanguinity and descent practiced by the Nairs was remarkable for its complex kinship organization and joint family set up, an...
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| Format: | Printed Book |
| Published: |
Montreal
School of Architecture, McGill University,
1998
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| Online Access: | http://10.26.1.76/ks/005239.pdf |
| Summary: | Among the few matrilineal communities from around the world were the Nairs of
the south-western coast, a1so known as the Malabar coast, of India. The system of
matrilineal consanguinity and descent practiced by the Nairs was remarkable for its
complex kinship organization and joint family set up, and the unique status - social and
economic - it afforded to the wornen ofthe community. Among the critical features of
this system were: the mode of tracing descent and kin-ties along the line of ancestress; the
holistic and ritually-significant quasi-corporate body, called tarawad; the relative latitude
extended to wornen in both marriage and termination of marriage; the "duolocal
residence" and the "visiting husband" system; the complex system of rights ofownership,
division and transmission of family landed property conferred upon fernale descendants;
and the existence ofa number of descent groups, caHed tavazhis, headed by fernale
descendants and forming sub-clans -- sometirnes as large as one hundred rnembers -- ail
living together in a tarawad house.
These factors were reflected in the spatial morphology of the traditional Naïr
house, an assemblage of four blacks, called the nalukettu. The different structural
identities of the tarawad institution; the comparative latitude and the bias of inheritance
that women enjoyed; the codes of marriage, interaction and avoidance; and the
observation of rituals, an integral part of the cosmology and temporal cycle of the system,
ail fmd expression in the layout and spatial organization. On the whole, the geometry of
the Nair nalulcettu was a graphic metaphor of the social and behavioral patterns of the
Nair community overlaid on the Hindu way of life, as interpreted by the community. This
study investigates how the morphology of the traditional Nair houses was influenced by
the matrilineal system and the concomitant gender roles and kinship pattern. |
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| Item Description: | A thesis submitted to The Faculty ofGraduate Studies and Research in partial fulfilment ofthe requirements of the degree of Master of Architecture |