The Maternal Uncle, the Wife's Father, and Murai

A second question arises in consideration of an obscure component of the elaborate ceremonies performed at a Nakarattar wedding.^[20] According to one of my informants, the wife's father (amman, mamakkarar ) enacted a distinctive role in these ceremonies that seems to have expressed the right of his family (the couple's tayatis ) to renew the alliance by marrying future children in their family to any subsequent children born in the groom's pulli . That is, according to this informant, murai obligations were

morally linked to the murai -giver's right to enforce an alliance-renewing marriage rule.

During a wedding, the mamakkarar stands in attendance throughout the marriage and is within early reach. He wears a ceremonial uniform with a gold-laced shawl in reddish color around his waist or belly. From the moment the bride groom leaves his home for the marriage celebrations to the bride's place and until the bridal couple's ceremonial setting foot at their new home, the mamakkarar leads the bride or the bridegroom at every step. He has to lead the way, to guide the bride or groom, to help the groom to mount up and dismount from the horse, to direct him to the prayers of the temple and to assist the Brahman priest in the rituals. If the mamakkarar family has a child of the opposite sex and suitable in age, to match the sister's child, marriage is contracted amongst them. If for any reason such a marriage is not consummated, the parties may agree to disagree. It is only as proof of this "no objection certificate" that the presence of the mamakkarar is insisted on throughout. In other words, a mamakkarar has the right of first refusal.

Here, apparently, is concrete evidence of a positive marriage rule operating in association with a rule about murai prestations. Both rules apply to two specific kin categories, WF and HF. The marriage rule, in particular, apparently generates the WF's right to renew a marriage alliance between two families in a way that is similar to marriage rules called uravin murai among Kallars, Nadars, and other South Indian castes. In the face of such a cogent and forceful opinion, it is important to note that this was the only expression even resembling uravin murai rules that I discovered among the Nakarattar. I heard no reports, for example, of sanction-free rights to "kidnap" a bride by tayati groups, as was reported about some Kallar groups. Nor did Nakarattars refer to their MBD as urimai pen (rightful woman) as was the case among representatives of Nadar and Kallar groups from whom I gathered information. It is the case that my informant successfully established a claim on the son of his in-laws' family as a groom for his second daughter (see comments in Table 12). But I have no indication that this alliance might be renewed in any subsequent generation. Moreover, as already noted, the incidence of multigenerational alliances was extremely low among all Nakarattars, and it may be that my informant (who could be an extremely persuasive negotiator) had managed to create a nonstandard "right" in the process of arranging the marriage (see Linda May, 1985). This lone exception aside, it had not occurred to any of my other Nakarattar informants that their caste maintained uravin murai . On the contrary, even those familiar with its operation denied that it operated among the Nakarattar.

This is significant. Positive rules enjoining asymmetrical, matrilateral cross-cousin marriage seem to have played a role in the social organization of nonmercantile castes such as the Kallars. The implication of my informant's claims is that his exercise of uravin murai rights represented an expression of a positive marriage rule among Nakarattars, although one that compelled symmetrical, bilateral cross-cousin marriage. If my informant was accurate about present-day Nakarattars, then it would not be unreasonable to assume that their ancestors also subscribed to such a rule. But in this case my informant's opinion is suspect. Whatever may be the case among non-Nakarattar castes, the Nakarattar expression of the rule—if expressed at all—is so feeble as to have no discernible effect, either manifest or latent.

The issue of possible linkage between murai obligations and marriage rules lies at the core of Dumont's argument about the self-renewing or perpetual character of Dravidian marriage alliance. According to Dumont, obligations to give external gifts such as cir or murai between allied descent groups symbolize the operation of a positive marriage rule. He provides no explicit rationale for this assertion. But he does offer several examples in which a mother's brother is replaced in his role as gift-giver by his sons or other agnates (1957b: 89–90). The implication is that uravin murai rights to renew the alliance are associated with obligations to give gifts; since the latter, at least, seem to be inherited by subsequent generations, so must be the former.

As with Dumont's non-Nakarattar groups, Nakarattars also engaged in a continuing series of external prestations from tayatis representatives to their daughter's (or sister's) pulli . Moreover, as with Dumont's non-Nakarattar groups, Nakarattar murai -givers replaced one another as representatives of the obligated tayatis . In the Nakarattar case, however, gifts and personnel replacements did not extend beyond the second generation. They had a distinct termination point, marked by the wedding of the final child born to the pulli that initiated the alliance. Either party had an option to renew the alliance. But they were not obligated to do so. Indeed, perhaps 95 percent of the time, the alliance was relinquished, and a different group established tayati obligations. In other words, although Nakarattar marriage alliance had what Dumont calls a diachronic quality, it was not therefore perpetual and self-renewing.^[21]