<p>This paper is concerned with the initial value problem for a system of one-dimensional fourth-order dispersive partial differential equations on the torus with nonlinearity involving derivatives up to second order. This paper gives sufficient conditions on the coefficients of the system for the initial value problem to be time-locally well-posed in Sobolev spaces with high regularity. The proof is based on the energy method combined with the idea of a gauge transformation and the technique of Bona–Smith type parabolic regularization. The sufficient conditions can be found in connection with geometric analysis on a fourth-order geometric dispersive partial differential equation for curve flows on a compact locally Hermitian symmetric space.</p>