In a short talk like this I cannot morethan refer to the best ethnographies of households for various definitions anddepictions (Richard Wilk 1997, Jane Guyer 1981, Enrique Mayer 2002, and for theuse of statistics in the Anthropological study of households see Fricke 199).After these great works on household why should I add something else? In otherwords, why ?imagined? households.This presentation should be, however, understoodas a small contribution to the Anthropology of Policy (Cris Shore and SusanWright 1997; Janine Wedel 1999, 2001, 2003; Janine Wedel, Cris Shore, GregoryFeldman, and Stacy Lathrop 2005). Its main object is the mode into which cashtransfer programmes? implementators understand and, to some extent, alsoperform beneficiary?s households as they imagine they should be.