At an interview which Della Vella [seventeenth century] had with the Zamorin, [the Samudiri or the ruler of Calicut] there were present two little princesses of the Royal house aged 12 years each; and of them he says, ‘they were all naked (as I said above the women generally go) saving that they had a very small blue cloth wrapped about their immodesties. One of them being more forward could not contain, but approaching gently towards me, almost touched the sleeve of my coat with her hand, made a sign of wonder to her sister, how could we go so wrapped up and entangled in clothes. Such is the power of custom that their going naked seemed no more strange to us, than our being clothed appeared extravagant to them.’K. P. Padmanabha Menon

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.

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Indian emigration policy's emphasis on restrictions on the mobility of women domestic workers to the Middle East has created conditions in which they are subject to exploitation and abuse in the emigration process as well as in overseas employment. Indian policy has made way for unscrupulous recruiters, raised the costs of migration and reduced returns. It is underpinned not by economics, but by a gendered, casteand class-based nationalism that regards the emigration of women domestic workers as degrading. In the Middle East, where the 'kafala' system of sponsorship endows sponsors-employers with extraordinary powers over immigrant workers, the lack of support from Indian embassies reinforces structural violence. Push factors and the demonstration effect of previous migration motives women to disregard state regulation. Domestic workers survive multiple pressures, tolerate abuse and strive to gain the sponsor's patronage or defy the system with the help of social networks to tap the gains of informal/illegal employment.