The final chapter of this book returns to the processes of household and lineage formation discussed in Chapters 2 and 3 to explore how these continued to unfold in southern Panjab during the late nineteenth century. It suggests that rural households continued to rely upon and build their networks of relations to variously extend and defend their control of land in the region, even as the contours and composition of the household were repeatedly renegotiated. The analysis proceeds along two axes. The first of these foregrounds lineage consolidation through the sale, lease, and mortgage of land. It suggests that ra‘iyati lineages deployed and consolidated their wealth of relations to take advantage of the contingent opportunities offered by the colonial rural economy. These opportunities included improvements in irrigation infrastructure, which in certain pockets created a buffer against drought without the attendant damage of rampant saline efflorescence, allowing lineages to expand their hold of land by attracting new members to their fold. Opportunities, however, also came in the form of a rival's misfortune, such as the sale of land occasioned by a village's inability to pay its revenues. In such an eventuality, afflicted rural communities would turn to their relations for loans or to step up as malguzars, or revenue payers, even as outsiders used their relations to attempt to gain a foothold in their rivals’ ‘alaqas.