Kettu Kalyanam, also known as , was the name of an elaborate marriage ceremony of the

Samanthan Samantan Nair or more commonly Samantan (meaning "equal to" or "deemed to be"), was a generic term applied to dignify a group of sub-clans among the ruling elites and feudal lords of the Nair community in Kerala. The Samantan Nairs are members of ...

Nair The Nair , also known as Nayar, are a group of Indian Hindu castes, described by anthropologist Kathleen Gough as "not a unitary group but a named category of castes". The Nair include several castes and many subdivisions, not all of whom histor ...

, Maarar, and

Ambalavasi Ambalavasi, more properly Ampalavasi, ( ml, അമ്പലവാസി; IAST: Ampalavāsi; ) is the generic name for a group of castes among Hindus in Kerala, India, who have traditionally rendered temple services. Castes The Ambalavasis are b ...

communities of the southern Indian state of

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

. The customs varied from region to region and

caste Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...

to caste. (a matrilineal form of marriage) might take place only if the bride had already had this elaborate ritual mock-marriage known as . The is ceremonial only, for after the rituals the groom returns to his house, never to meet the bride again. In some parts of Malabar immediately after the ceremony, a formal divorce is constituted, whereas in other areas the groom enters into with the girl and becomes her husband in practice, if the girl be of marriageable age.

Ceremonies

Among the communities that practiced the custom, a grand ceremony would be held at its oldest ancestral house. All the girls of appropriate age of the lineage of one generation were ritually married to chosen bridegrooms of (linked neighborhood kinship groups not of the same family group as the brides). This ceremony, called ("tāli-tying ceremony") had to be performed for each girl before puberty, on pain of her excommunication from her caste. At the ceremony, each bridegroom, in the company of representatives of every household in the neighbourhood, tied a gold ornament (a ) round the neck of his bride. Each couple was then secluded in a room of the ancestral house for three days and nights. On the fourth day the bridegrooms departed; they had no further obligations, and did not need to visit the brides again.

Groom selection

Kinship and purpose

After the ritual, a girl was regarded as having attained the status of a mature woman, ready to bear children to perpetuate her lineage. This social recognition of marriageability was entirely separate from community acknowledgement of physical maturity upon reaching puberty. For that, there was a separate ceremony, , performed at a girl's

menarche Menarche ( ; ) is the first menstrual cycle, or first menstrual bleeding, in female humans. From both social and medical perspectives, it is often considered the central event of female puberty, as it signals the possibility of fertility. Gir ...

. The -tying ritual was both a religious and legal ceremony between the lineage and group, and thus can be seen as a form of mass marriage, even though it is in practice only a mock-marriage, while the later are actual marriages.

References

{{Indian wedding Kerala society Indian wedding traditions