The hypothesis, proposed by writers such as Fuller and Louis Dumont, that most of the subgroups were not subcastes arises in large part because of the number of ways in which Nairs classified themselves, which far exceeded the 18 or so groups which had previously been broadly accepted. Dumont took the extreme view that the Nairs as a whole could not be defined as a caste in the traditional sense, but Fuller believed this to be unreasonable as, "since the Nayars live in a caste society, they must evidently fit into the caste system at some level or another." The 1891 Census of India listed a total of 128 Nair subgroups in the Malabar region and 55 in the Cochin region, as well as a further 10 in the Madras area but outside Malabar. There were 44 listed in Travancore in the census of 1901. These designations were, however, somewhat fluid: the numbers tended to rise and fall, dependent upon which source and which research was employed; it is likely also that the figures were skewed by Nairs claiming a higher status than they actually had, which was a common practice throughout 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."