The Matrilineal Joint Family

In one line

In parts of Kerala and coastal Karnataka a Hindu family traced its descent, its membership and its property through the mother, and section 7 of the Hindu Succession Act converted every member's interest into a share that passes by succession.

The three systems

MU asks for the matrilineal joint family, and there are three named systems, all recognised by the Hindu Succession Act.

Marumakkattayam, followed by the Nairs and several other communities of Kerala. The word means descent through the sister's children. Its unit is the tarwad.

Aliyasantana, followed in the South Kanara region of coastal Karnataka, principally by the Bunts and Billavas. The word means the sister's son's line. Its units are the kutumba and the kavaru.

Nambudri, followed by the Nambudri Brahmins of Kerala, whose unit is the illom. The Nambudri system was itself patrilineal and impartible, and it is grouped with the others in the Act because the same statutory treatment was needed.

The tarwad

The tarwad is the marumakkattayam joint family, and it is the model to learn.

Membership. A tarwad consists of all the descendants in the female line of one common ancestress. So a woman, her children, her daughters' children, and so on for ever, are in it. A man is a member of his mother's tarwad, and his children are not: they belong to their own mother's tarwad.

That single rule produces everything else. A father and his children are in different families and own no property in common.

Property. The tarwad property is held by the tarwad as a body. No member has a defined share, and the property is impartible in the classical law: no member could demand a partition.

Management: the karanavan. The tarwad was managed by the karanavan, its senior-most male member, usually the eldest maternal uncle. His powers over the tarwad resembled the karta's over a Mitakshara joint family: management, representation, and alienation for necessity or benefit. The senior female member, sometimes called the karanavathi, had a recognised position but the management was his.

That is the point about matriliny. Descent, membership and property ran through the women, and the management ran through a man. A matrilineal family need not be, and this one was not, matriarchal.

The tavazhi. A branch of a tarwad, consisting of a female member and all her descendants in the female line. A tavazhi could in some circumstances hold property of its own and become a tarwad in miniature.

The kutumba and the kavaru

The aliyasantana system is the same idea with different names.

The kutumba is the aliyasantana joint family, the whole body descended in the female line from a common ancestress.