Matriliny, Patriliny and the Postmodern Condition: Complexities of “Family” in Kerala
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Matriliny has been a major family form in Kerala together with joint family living. This type of family has prevented the destitution of women, the aged and children whose parents are not alive. The trend in Kerala in favour of patriliny and the nuclear family type is highlighted here through two case studies from two vastly different social segments in Kerala: (i) a scheduled tribe population–the Kurichiyan–that has been constitutionally acknowledged as eligible for special safeguards due to its historical deprivations; and (ii) a community that occupied a superior position in the caste system and ritual dominance–the Thirumumbu, a Brahmin community. However the paper moves beyond the case studies that depict a transition away from matriliny and raises some issues that caution against any conclusion that the Kerala family has moved away from matriliny and the joint family to patriliny and the nuclear family. There have always been diverse family forms in Kerala and this continues to be so, although more unfavorable to women. New trends in Kerala society, especially domestic violence against women, lead one to question the relevance of the family as an institution. In considering the emerging trends, the paper concludes that the family in some form will continue, despite facing major challenges.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.011 | 0.026 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".