"The tali-kettu ceremony is cancelled by a ceremony called vazhippu, by which all connection between the tali-tier and the girl is extinguished. The wedding ornament is exactly the same as that of the Izhavas, and is known as the minnu (that which shines). The system of inheritance is makkathayam. It is naturally curious that, among a makkathayam community, paternal polyandry should have been the rule till lately. 'The custom,' says Mateer, 'of one woman having several husbands is sometimes practiced by carpenters, stone-masons, and individuals of other castes. Several brothers living together are unable to support a single wife for each, and take one, who resides with them all. The children are reckoned to belong to each brother in succession in the order of seniority.' But this, after all, admits of explanation. If only the marumakkathayam system of inheritance is taken, as it should be, as a necessary institution in a society living in troublous times, and among a community whose male members had duties and risks which would not ordinarily permit of the family being perpetuated solely through the male line, and not indicating any paternal uncertainty as some theorists would have it; and if polyandry, which is much more recent than the marumakkathayam system of inheritance, is recognised to be the deplorable result of indigence, individual and national, and not of sexual bestiality, there is no difficulty in understanding how a makkathayam community can be polyandrous. Further, the manners of the Kammalars lend a negative support to the origin just indicated by the marumakkathayam system of inheritance even among the Nayars. The work of the Kammalars was within doors and at home, not even in a large factory where power-appliances may lend an element of risk, for which reason they found it quite possible to keep up lineage in the paternal line, which the fighting Nayars could not possibly do. And the fact that the marumakkathayam system was ordained only for the Kshatriyas, and for the fighting races, and not for the religious and industrial classes, deserves to be specially noted in this connection."