Tharavad

Common house for the joint family system practised in Kerala, India

Tharavad, also spelled as Tharavadu (തറവാട്), is the Malayalam word for the ancestral home of aristocratic families ,in Kerala, which usually served as the common residence for the matrilineal joint family German linguist Hermann Gundert, in his Malayalam—English dictionary published in 1872, defines a Tharavadu as, "An ancestral residence of land-owners and kings", and also as, "A house, chiefly of noblemen". By extension, the word refers not just to the family's house but to the extended family that shares that house. It was classically the residence of Jenmimar, but contemporary usage of the word is now more generic to all social classes and religions in Kerala. Heads of tharavadus - usually the eldest living male - were known as Karnavars, and junior members as Anandravans.

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