The women explicitly recognise this situation. One group told my wife that akrabalïk , kinship, did not count for women as it did for men. What mattered to women was neighbourliness, komshuluk . They did not mean that kinship does not count at all. Ties with kin are kept up by occasional visits, by gossip and news, by children going back and forth. Where close kin are within reach, the relationship may be very close. Bektesh's wife had a sister a few doors away, and these two were constantly exchanging visits, bread and children more freely than either did with the households around them. Two young married women of lineage in Sakaltutan were both married to the other end of the village, yet they were very frequent visitors of their mothers and sisters.
The importance of kin ties to a woman vary not only with the accident of marriage, but also with the stage it has reached. In her early years, she is an inferior in her household, and still looks to her natal kin for love and support. As she establishes a growing family of her own, and close ties with her affines through the children, she becomes more centred on her marital home, her neighbours, and her grandchildren than on her natal kin. An old widowed mother normally remains with her sons, among the neighbours of her adult lifetime. Of course, childlessness, serious quarrels, a husband's death, or a divorce may make normality impossible. The worst that can befall a woman is an old age kimsesiz, without anyone, dependent on the charity of neighbours who have no obligation to help.
In Sakaltutan, the women's terms of address matched this lack of emphasis on particular kin ties. All women call their equals and juniors, whether kin or not, kiz , girl, occasionally putting a personal name in front of it to avoid ambiguity. Older women, if addressed at all, are addressed by kinship terms, often by a term closer than the actual link. Non-kin equally are addressed as abla, elder sister; as baci, a word also meaning sister, but commonly used as a respect title like a§a or efendi for the men; or as amme (father's sister).