Beyond the obvious situation of young girls using their social standing to wield power over adults and each other, there was also the fact that the adults involved in conducting the trials stood to gain by eliminating rivals whose lands and holdings were desirable and would not sell or work with them.

I'm confused about what they mean by the first half of that sentence, are they claiming young women would accuse each other of being witches and used their social standing to do that? Sure there were young girls/women who would do that, but many of the accusers were adult males. I think it's time I cracked open my old witch trial textbook and read up on it again.