In his seminal work, The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England 1500-1800, Lawrence Stone cites legal change as part of the evidence for his claim that a new sort of family marked the eighteenth century. Property law especially is pointed to as proof that the patriarchal family had given way to what has come to be known as the affective family. It was, of course, natural to seek a basis in law for a theory of family development. Law at any time tells us much about family life. It is certainly fundamental to changes that are said to mark the affective family. Because of an increase in affect (or in another word, love) it is claimed that the new family type saw an increase in the independence of children, and an increase in the status and property of women. Indeed, recognizing the importance of law, Stone has found each of his three stages in family history to be paralleled in property law. The discussion of law does not occupy much space; but it occupies strategic space. Law is the first, or almost the first, thing discussed in each of the stages of the family. The legal arrangements governing property are not just a part of the evidence for the theory; they are a most important part. They can be seen to provide the framework, the hard structure, on which the theory is built. “The hardest evidence”—Stone's words—for the great change he sees in the eighteenth century he finds in law.