268 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



before his body is carried out. She has neither part 

 nor lot in the funeral ceremonies, nor in any property 

 of her husband. Both in North and South Malabar 

 either party may terminate the union and contract a 

 new one at pleasure. It is matter of dispute whether 

 a woman may have more than one husband (and 

 consequently whether a husband may have more than 

 one wife) at the same time. The older accounts 

 affirmed it. Nowadays it is fiercely denied, though 

 there is distinct evidence of it at a recent date in 

 Travancore. The probability is that this was the 

 custom, but that it is dying out under modern in- 

 fluences. 1 "In consequence of this strange manner 

 of propagating the species," we are told, " no Nair 

 knows his father, and every man looks upon his 

 sister's children as his heirs. He indeed looks upon 

 them with the same fondness that fathers in other 

 parts of the world have for their own children ; and he 

 would be considered an unnatural monster were he to 

 show such signs of grief at the death of a child, which, 

 from long cohabitation and love with its mother, he 

 might suppose to be his own, as he did at the death of 

 a child of his sister. A man's mother manages his 

 family ; and after her death his eldest sister assumes 

 the direction. Brothers almost always live under the 

 same roof ; but if one of the family separates from the 

 rest he is always accompanied by his favourite sister. 

 ... A man's movable property after his death is 

 divided among the sons and daughters of all his 

 sisters. His landed estate is managed by the eldest 



1 Madras Govt. Mus. Bull. iii. 33, 34, 228 sqq. ; Ind. Census, 

 1901 (Cochin), xx. 152, 160 ; (Travancore), xxvi. 327 sqq. ; J. A .1. 

 xii. 288 sqq. ; Thurston, 115 sqq. 



