There are a few problems with the lede on polyandry  Only a small minority of Nairs in Central Kerala practiced this The vast majority of those in the South and North didnt practiced it Central Nairs are mostly Charna Nairs who rank lower than Kiryathils of the North and Illath of South  Polyandry was widely practiced in Kerala and the main practitioners of it were not Nairs but lower ranking Savarna castes such as Kammalans  Sources about polyandry are written by a few European researchers who dont have first hand experience about this and many of them havent even visited Kerala The last recorded instance of polyandry among Nairs date back to midth century Not   There are travelogues written by many European explorers like Duarte Barbosa and none of them mentions polyandry But every single one of them mentions about the martial traditions of Nairs I find it quite ironic that the martial history is completely ignored and POV prone issues like polyandry are given undue weight however a few Evangelical Christian editors who are superactive here for the past  months will disagree with this statement