Adopting an institutional approach, this study looks at how the intergenerational contract in rural China shapes involuntary bachelorhood in high sex ratio contexts, a perspective that has received limited attention in previous research. Based on semi-structured interviews with rural women and men in Shaanxi province, we draw attention to the significance of the son-centred intergenerational contract, and find that failing to fulfil it, involuntary bachelors are seen as exposing ‘filial incapacity’. Such filial incapacity stems not only from being unable to uphold the patrilineal-patrilocal complex, but also from failing to reproduce feminised care, and is associated with dishonour. Strategies to mitigate filial incapacity are muted by patrilocal marriage customs and female hypergamic norms, and the narrative that bride prices are mandatory and unattainable. Although uxorilocal marriages can be a way to escape involuntary bachelorhood, the son-centred intergenerational contract stands in the way for such arrangements, especially for brotherless men. As such, we conclude that involuntary bachelorhood is not only posing a crisis to the intergenerational contract, but the son-centred intergenerational contract is productive of a set of crises for single men, including the very category of ‘bare branch’ itself.