Biological bonding mechanism

I've been toying with the idea of a society with alternative forms of families or social structures. In one individuals of coming of age (socially imposed) or due to a biological necessity (biologically imposed) imprint themselves to another older individual. Such an imprinting creates a chain or tree like structure that may span generations.

I'm looking for biologically or physically plausible ways such an imprinting might occur. Are there any examples from past fiction or real-life that might be a good starting point?

Additionally the mechanism should allow the following: if an individual in such a chain or tree perishes beyond natural causes (think bodily harm) everyone in the chain/tree will die as well. How can biological organisms communicate such an occurrence from a distance? Beyond hormones or motherly instinct is there anything else to go by? If need-be I'd like to keep the need for implants or technology to a minimum, but wouldn't exactly rule it out entirely.

The focus of the question is to explore the biology or mechanisms behind such a system, but welcome any input on how various solutions/mechanisms might affect the development of the chain/tree structures differently.

EDIT

I've changed the question to focus more on the biological mechanism and removed the follow-up questions about societal nature. However, I envision such a tree/chain structure to develop in pseudo-caste systems where certain trees/chains be more favorable than others.

posted about 6 years ago

Nox‭

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