This article is based on two field surveys carried out among families of independent workers, one among wine growers in the Cognac region, the other one among families of bakers and masons. In both cases, one observes, on one hand a gendered share of tasks among the —professional and domestic— cooperative of family production — which we will call “household “and, on the other hand, a “gendered “definition of roles in the trasmission of the descendants’ patrimony (or groups of descendants). However, the people questionned don’t speak either normative or disputing discourses about the role of men and women. The sharing of tasks, for example, is described, but its gendered aspect is ignored and even less questioned. In the absence of a feminist or sexist discourse, the issue of the genre can nevertheless make sense for the actors when problematics that concern them are raised. Then, the differenciation between male and female roles in the lineage is quite explicited, even questioned, by the people surveyed. On the other hand, the problematisation of the gendered sharing of tasks (professional and domestic) only appears indirectly. In order to tackle it, the surveyors had to raise a question that was particularly relevant to the surveyed: the increase of salaried work among independent workers’ wives.