When Men Marry into Their Wives’ Families: Changing Patriarchy, Intimacy, and Masculinity in Everyday Family Life of Post-Reform China

Why has uxorilocal marriage persisted and changed in Xiaoshan over decades? This presentation examines shangmen nüxu (上门女婿), or ‘married-in husbands,’ in a prosperous and rapidly urbanising region of Zhejiang. Drawing on 12 years of ethnographic work, it follows uxorilocal marriage across generations and treats it as a continuous, changing family arrangement.

The history of uxorilocal marriage in Xiaoshan provides a distinctive view of social transformation. Decisions made by individual men and nuclear families involve wider adjustments to state policies and political-economic change, shifting local cultural values, reconfigured neighbourhood networks, and changing relations between individual aspiration and family obligation. These adjustments unfold through everyday questions of residence, housing, care, inheritance, marriage negotiations, and local reputation.

The talk situates Xiaoshan and its public image as a ‘capital of married-in husbands.’ It draws on participant observation, household visits, and individual and group interviews with 56 families across 6 villages and new residential communities, alongside conversations with local officials, matchmakers, and legal and mediation professionals. It traces uxorilocal arrangements across generations, questions why they have changed and remained, and shows how patriarchy, intimacy, and masculinity are negotiated and remade in everyday family life.