Gender,Caste and Matchmaking in Kerala: A Rationale for Dowry

The matrilineal castes of northern Kerala consider dowry demeaning and resort to it only in ‘exceptional’ circumstances. In local discourse, dowry is transacted when women are considered ‘old’ by the standards of the marriage market, where over‐age is a condition reached usually on account of what is considered a deficit of a normative conception of femininity. Dowry is practised openly only by poor and socially vulnerable households, as the relatively affluent could mask dowry with hidden compensations. This article explores the ways in which gender mediates matchmaking and generates a residual category of women for whom dowry is openly negotiated. Open negotiation on the margins of the marriage market expose the terms of exchange in ‘respectable’ society, where matchmaking strategies reveal the emphasis placed on conjugality and on caste in the social construction of women's interests and identity. Up to the mid‐twentieth century, matrilineal women derived their identity from their natal families. The political economy of marriage in Kerala brought a new emphasis to bear on conjugality and on caste, which generated new restrictions on women and produced a rationale for dowry.     

Early Metal in South India: Copper and Iron in Megalithic Contexts

In South India early metal artifacts, usually associated with megalithic sites, include both copper and iron. Although in some cases copper artifacts predate those made of iron, there is no evidence of an extensive metallurgical tradition based on copper and its alloys. Typological studies have had limited success in explaining the megalithic sites and the production and consumption of metal, while other approaches have not explicitly addressed the social contexts of metal production. While there emerge some suggestive patterns from the archaeometallurgical evidence to date, understanding the role of metal production and consumption in megalithic contexts means reevaluating traditional paradigms about the nature of these sites and about how metal technologies develop.