Woman's retaining Independent for descendant (4)
I believe the answer is:
heir
'descendant' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'woman's retaining independent' is the wordplay.
'woman' becomes 'her' (**).
'retaining' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'independent' becomes 'i'.
'her' enclosing 'i' is 'HEIR'.
'for' is the link.
(Other definitions for heir that I've seen before include "One expected to succeed?" , "Beneficiary, inheritor" , "One destined to succeed" , "Someone expected to inherit" , "One who will succeed to title" .)