Contrary to what's written in this link, Nair Sambandhams in most cases were indeed considered as ideal, and husbands did have close relations with their wife & children even though the property was passed on from the wife. I shall give 5 instances as examples below. https://twitter.com/Mint_Lounge/status/1119087963177021442

1. https://twitter.com/Dauhshanti/status/990941237334065153 Entire property of a Nambuthiri Brahmin was passed on to his Nair wife belonging to the Samuthiri royalty of Calicut since he had no other heirs. This would have been impossible if the husband had no role to play in wife's matters..

2. https://twitter.com/Dauhshanti/status/1098985744641581056 One of the Nair Chaver (suicide fighters of medieval Kerala) named Kandar Menon visits his wife's household before taking his final journey to battle at Mamankam festival as recorded in a ballad.

His son also accompanied him in the journey & they both fought the battle together and died together in the battle. This shows close relations between the father & the son even though the son belonged to mother's household.

3. The Cochin Maharajas claimed origins from the sister of last Chera king who was married to a Nambuthiri Brahmin landlord from Perumbadappu. This Brahmin later gave his entire property to the royal lady & the kingdom came to be known as Perumbadappu Swaroopam.

4. Similar was also the case with Payencheri Nairs, who were children of Charkare (Sarkara) Kovilakam belonging to the royalty of Kodungallur. The Raja have his property to his wife & children (who did not belong to father's family, thus 'illegitimate' as per the author).

5. In royal households, men indeed have close relations with their children. Here is the painting of Maharaja of Travancore Swathi Thirunal with his father Raja Raja Varma Koil Thampuran. The children of Maharajas also were honored by the name 'Thampi' & had special privileges.

The kings of Kerala married Nair ladies, they too were honored with the title 'Amma' 'mother' as called by the citizens. In north Malabar it was Kettilamma, in central Kerala it was Nethyaramma and in Travancore it was Panapillai Ammachi.

It is important to mention that divorce indeed was quite common among Nairs. For e.g Thacholi Othenan, famous warrior of Vadakkan Pattukal (northern ballads) was son of his mother's second husband. His mother married a Brahmin earlier & divorced. Othenan was son of Nair husband.

But divorce being easy (divorce obviously exists even today) doesn't mean the women had multiple husbands at the same time as stated by Shashi Tharoor and other leftist authors who try to portray Nair women as promiscuous & demean the community.

Even if such a system (which medieval Malayalam authors make no mention of) existed in remote areas, it certainly doesn't mean that was mainstream. As it is clear from the above instances that husband of a Nair woman indeed had a role to play in married life.

Venad Maharaja Rama Varma (uncle of famous Anizham Thirunal Marthanda Varma) supervised the education and training of his sons (Thampimar) as recorded in folksong.

He gave them royal privileges of training to ride horses and elephants.

He was happy seeing the Kalari training of his sons.

Later he also gave many property to the Thampis. This simply proves that the father-son relationship was close even when matrilineal tradition flourished in Kerala back then.

Venad Maharaja Rama Varma married a non-Malayali lady named Abhirami. She was later considered as Nair & his sons too became Thampis (Nair subcaste in Travancore, children of Maharajas). This folk song say that he raised sons by himself even though matrilineal tradition existed.

Nair husband had rights to instantly k!ll anyone who dared to approach his wife. via @Abhiramann

Divorce existed, but it was looked down upon and second marriage had no much celebrations (even today this is the case).

Nair marriages also included horoscope matching and gifting presents to learned Brahmins. via @Abhiramann

All these proves that the Nairs indeed had concept of marriage. Even when Sambandham can be broken at will of either party, it was a rare phenomenon and most of them remained monogamous.