In the preceding chapters, several aspects of seventeenth-century Dutch gift exchange have been discussed. The goal of this research was to try to understand how gift exchange as a system was organised in seventeenth-century Holland and how it was perceived by individuals in the context of seventeenth-century Dutch society. The general idea was that by taking gift exchange as a means of establishing and maintaining social ties and therewith an important factor in social relationships, gift exchange could help determine whether relationships in this period were as instrumental as they are often perceived by contemporary historians. Or, to put it in other words: Did they perceive their social behaviour as instrumental as we see it?

In order to answer this question, several steps were taken. First, the (possible) practices of exchange in seventeenth-century Holland were analysed and described as a means of discovering what networks individuals were exchanging gifts in; what type of gifts were being exchanged; and on what occasions they exchanged gifts. In the second part, the various meanings gifts could have in seventeenth-century society were considered. The purpose of this was to show how different gifts were perceived; gifts could be appreciated for their symbolic meaning, for their economic value, as a signifier of one's reputation, or as something that brought company and pleasure. In that respect, gifts were not just instruments that were used to obtain something else, but also things that were appreciated in their own right. In part three, the discourses that surrounded gift exchange in this period were examined on the basis of some specific gift-exchange relationships. The role of the gift within these relationships was considered as a way of finding out how gift exchange was discussed and referred to during this period.

In this last chapter, the findings of the earlier chapters on seventeenth- century Dutch gift exchange will be compared to contemporary Dutch gift exchange. This will help explain how both instrumentality and affection are important elements of gift exchange and social relations in the two periods. Here the practices of and discourses on seventeenth-century exchange will be discussed in comparison to the practices of and discourses on exchange on the brink of the twenty-first-century in the Netherlands on the basis of the Letters to the Future.