The story details how the matrilineal society of those times, encourages Namboothiris to start a relationship with Indulekha. Indulekha promptly snubs the old Nambudiri man, but Madhavan in haste runs away from the household, to Bengal. There he makes a lot of good friends. In the end, he arrives back and is united with Indulekha. They then leave to Madras, present day Chennai. The story emphasizes inter-caste marriage. The old Namboothiri represents the decadence of feudalism and its polygamous practices. Indulekha, the novel's educated heroine, dramatizes the resistance of a progressive Nair woman. She refuses to succumb to the oppression of the Namboothiri and marries Madhavan, who stands up to the social evils of the period. In 2014 April, literary critics Dr. P. K. Rajasekharan and Dr. P. Venugopalan, published a well accepted research finding in "Mathrubhumi Weekly", according to which the available version of the novel is a revised and edited version of the original one. According to the findings, the original novel which made a strong advocacy for women's empowerment was mercilessly edited and those who published the book in later years chopped off many such portions. The last chapter (chapter 20) was the most edited one. Ravi Deecee, publisher, D C Books , after corresponding with the British Library in London for over two years and browsing through the rare collections for days have sourced the particular edition to the library, which was made available to the respective critics. The novel was published in 1889 by 'Spectator Achukoodam'. It went out-of-print in March 1890 and the second edition was published by 'Kozhikode Educational and General Book Depot' in June 1890. The 51st edition of the novel was published in 1951 by Vidyavardhini Publishers, Trivandrum. The book entered public domain in the 1950s. The first National Book Stall (NBS) edition of the novel came in 1955. Although the previous editions of the book had variations from the original the first NBS edition was a completely revised and edited one. They went to the extent of removing the whole 18th chapter which according to noted critic M. P. Paul, had badly affected the continuity of the novel. Other NBS editions however replaced the 18th chapter but many other changes they made still persist in all the available versions of the book.