Meaning:
A 20th century slang term, meaning wife.
Background:
The allusion being to the presumption that a man's wife held him back from
doing the things he really wanted to.
This, of course, refers back to the actual ball and chain, which was a heavy
metal ball secured to a prisoner's leg by means of a chain and manacle. The
ball and chain was in use in both Britain and the USA by the early 19th
century (and possibly much earlier). The earliest citation in print is from
The Times, January 1819:
"They sentence the prisoner to receive 50 stripes on his bare back, and be
confined with a ball and chain to hard labour for 12 calendar months."
Soon after, in 1821, is this US reference from the Ohio Repository, Canton, Ohio:
"Bread and water, the ball and chain, and even whipping, the convicts
prefer to the solitary cell."
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack Han, a remote cousin, told his family story when I was visiting last year.
His grandfather, an educated peasant in a Hebei village, was sought after by
both sides of the Chinese civil war. His wife wanted him to have nothing to do
with politics but grandpa Han put his foot down and wouldn't be tethered to his
ball and chain. "The country ruled by a woman ends in ruin and the home goes to
the dogs," he scoffed. He joined the Kuomintang soon after WWII and became
county head. It took only three years, however, for him to tumble with the
Nationalists and his line sufferred for generations after he died as a
counter-revolutionist in prison.
