Like the rest of Philippine societies, Manobos reckon kinship and descent bilaterally.  Among the Manobos, this organization is materialized through polygynous marriages in which female spouses are taken in by men into their households with the consent of the first wife. Female spouses are often siblings or blood related kin, but a pattern in which female spouses come from different places is manifest as well. This creates a wider interfamilial network. Wives and their young children assist in maintaining the forest swiddens. Those taken in after the first wife are called duwey (legal wives). Women who have illicit relationships with married men are called heney.

    Marriages in the past were arranged (buya) by parents and women married at young age (normatively at the onset of puberty). Men wishing to marry render service to his bride’s parents and after long initial negotiations with them before a wedding ceremony can finally take place.

    Manobo wedding is, as elsewhere, characterized by the exchange of gifts. In this event, elders counsel (bisara) the newly-wed couple, who then symbolically feed each other with mounds of cooked rice as a gesture of promising a shared life to come. After marriage, the newlyweds establish their own households, unless they are needed by any of their parents so that they stay to take care of them, the aged.

    The Visayanization of the indigenous Manobo culture since late 19th century had discouraged polygamous marriages, but these still exist in the barrios that are far from the reach of Christian hegemony.

    Manobos living in the town center have had friendly relationships with Visayan settlers. This has been particularly evident in the numerous cross-cultural Manobo-Visayan marriages.

    In addition, Manobo friendship with the Visayan settlers has been expressed through Christian rituals of baptism and marriage, a type of social relation called compadrazgo, which simulates kinship.