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This paper questions from women’s point of view both the validity of the Norman patrilineal principle, which excluded girls from inheritances, and its consequences for farm management. The paper focuses on the rural area around the Normandy town of Vernon from 1750 to 1830 and considers the introduction of the Civil Code, with its compulsory equality between girls and boys. While Normandy scrupulously applied the exclusionary principle against girls until the Revolution, the role of women in the circulation of property was already significant well before the Code was introduced, both in the marketplace and in family processes of inheritance, all of which explains why the Code was accepted with no resistance in Normandy. In fact, Normandy residents were far more preoccupied by the living conditions of their nuclear households and by the economic viability of their farms than by conserving patrimonial interests and patrilineality.