It should come as no surprise now that during the nineteenth century the dynamics of kinship in Neckarhausen came to be governed by women. Widows married less frequently and seldom gave up their property until they were old and feeble. In the life of the village, older, propertied, and resident women grew more powerful as they learned to control fundamental resources: land, agricultural equipment, buildings, and credit. They also became important in negotiating marriages and were at the center of an alliance system that stressed mutual reciprocity between lines rather than patriarchal authority – as can be seen in the choice of godparents and in naming practices. With the gender balance of the village tipped radically in favor of women (100 adult women to 85 adult men), and with agriculture demanding more of their labor, they negotiated a central place in the productive structures of the village and in the consumption decisions of their households. If formal offices remained in the hands of men and if the early Verein movement took up most of their energies, women came to find a parallel field for political and social activity in caring for kin, negotiating networks, brokering alliances, and maintaining the viability of agriculture and flax production. Although there is no prima facie reason to expect that women from different classes in the course of the nineteenth century would play similar roles or develop equivalent social and familial functions and strategies, that is in fact what happened.