India. Data from the late 19th-century and early 20th-century censuses indicates that ten of these numerous subdivisions accounted for around 90% of all Nairs, that the five highest ranking of these accounted for the majority, and that some of the subdivisions claimed as little as one member. The writer of the official report of the 1891 census, H A Stuart, acknowledged that some of the recorded subdivisions were in fact merely families and not subcastes, and Fuller has speculated that the single-member subdivisions were "Nayars satisfying their vanity, I suppose, through the medium of the census." The revisionist argument, whose supporters also include Joan Mencher, proposes a mixed system. The larger divisions were indeed subcastes, as they demonstrated a stability of status, longevity and geographic spread; however, the smaller divisions were fluid, often relatively short-lived and narrow in geographic placement. These divisions, such as the Veluttetan, Chakkala and Vilakkittalavan, would take titles such as Nair or Nayar in order to boost their social status, as was also the practice with other castes elsewhere, although they were often not recognised as caste members by the higher ranks and other Nairs would not marry with them. It has also been postulated that some exogamous families came together to form small divisions as a consequence of shared work experiences with, for example, a local Nambudiri or Nair chief. These groups then became an endogamous subdivision, in a similar manner to developments of subdivisions in other castes elsewhere. The more subdivisions that were created, the more opportunity there was for social mobility within the Nair community as a whole. Even the highest ranked of the Nairs, being the kings and chiefs, were no more than "supereminent" subdivisions of the caste, rather than the Kshatriyas and Samantans that they claimed to be. Their claims illustrated that the desires and aspirations of self-promotion applied even at the very top of the community and this extended as far as each family refusing to admit that they had any peers in rank, although they would acknowledge those above and below them. The membership of these two subgroups was statistically insignificant, being a small fraction of 1 per cent of the regional population, but the example of aspirational behaviour which they set filtered through to the significant ranks below them. These subdivisions might adopt a new name or remove themselves from any association with a ritually demeaning occupation in