Tharavad () (തറവാട്), is the

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...

word for the ancestral home of aristocratic families in

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 Ca ...

, which usually served as the common house for the joint family system practiced in the state. The German linguist Hermann Gundert, in his Malayalam—English dictionary published in 1872, defines a ''tharavad'' as, "An ancestral residence of land-owners and kings", and also as, "A house, chiefly of noblemen". Contemporary usage of the word is now more generic to all social classes. By extension, the word refers not just to the family's house but to the extended family that shares that house. In the Nair Tharavads, the head of the family was known as Karnavar and the inheritance was

matrilineal Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline – their mother's lineage – and which can involve the inheritance ...

. In the Namboothiri Tharavads, the inheritance was

patrilineal Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritan ...

References

{{Culture of Kerala Kerala society Culture of Kerala Social history of Kerala