Adaptive patriliny: care and lineage continuity in Liangtouhun families in contemporary China

Drawing on field research and interviews with six families in a peri-urban setting in Jiangsu Province, this study examines how Liangtouhun arrangements connect caregiving, family recognition, and lineage continuity. Liangtouhun is understood as a marriage arrangement involving ongoing coordination with both spouses’ natal families, rather than a uniform pattern of alternating co-residence. The analysis identifies four related patterns: participants explained the arrangement through childcare needs and obligations to aging parents; caregiving contributions were invoked to justify claims for recognition; participants attached differing degrees of flexibility and significance to residential, surname, and ritual practices; and competing expectations were expressed through fairness, reciprocity, and family responsibility.

Existing surname allocations are distinguished from unimplemented spousal agreements and prospective preferences. Care-for-recognition describes how practical support was connected to claims for involvement and belonging, without assuming a fixed exchange. Adaptive patriliny captures how bilateral participation can coexist with, and reconfigure, continuing commitments to descent-based family continuity.

These commitments were expressed by members of both spouses’ natal families. The study therefore complicates an interpretation of bilateral participation as necessarily displacing patrilineal practices, while recognizing that the evidence does not establish the preservation of male decision-making authority. School of International Cultures and Social Development, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, China School of Law, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China School of Ethnology and Sociology, Minzu University of China, Beijing, China The authors declare no competing interests.

At the time of fieldwork, formal institutional ethics review was not required for this type of qualitative social science research at the authors’ institution. The study involved minimal-risk qualitative interviews with adult participants and followed ethical principles for research involving human participants, including voluntary participation, informed consent before interviews, and protection of privacy and confidentiality. Identifying information was removed from the research data and publications.

In May 2025, after completion of the fieldwork, the research materials and procedures were submitted to the School of Sociology and Ethnology, Minzu University of China, which confirmed that the study was exempt from ethics review. Prior to participation, all individuals were provided with a written explanation of the study’s purpose, procedures, confidentiality protections, and their right to withdraw at any time without consequence. Written informed consent was obtained from each participant by the lead researcher between Feb. 2022 and Jan. 2023.

Consent included agreement to participate in the research, to have anonymized data used for academic publication, and to allow quotations from their interviews to appear in scholarly work, with identifying details removed or modified to preserve anonymity. All participants were adults capable of providing consent, and none belonged to vulnerable populations as defined by local standards. The study assured participants of complete anonymity and minimal risk, and data were handled and stored securely in accordance with internationally recognized research ethics protocols.