A Case Study of a Historical Matrilineal Community From an Evolutionary Perspective

The historical mating practices of a South Indian community, the Nayars, have often been cited as an example of matriliny and polyandry. Little attention has been given to puritanical aspects of their conjugal unions involving endogamy and hypergamy. We adopt an evolutionary psychology perspective to reexamine these practices. We outline key historical events to situate the Nayar case in the broader Indian context and compare different evolutionary psychology models of sexual strategies to determine the most befitting one. The unique mating arrangements provide a novel opportunity to appraise the focal points of the different models involving fitness-indicators, resource provisioning, parenting, and the temporality of the mating context. This exercise helps in revealing the primacy of assortative mating and perceived mate quality based on prestige-markers, despite the incertitude about resource provisioning or other direct benefits.