tied to apron strings

Idioms and Phrases

Wholly dependent on or controlled by a woman, especially one's mother or wife. For example, At 25, he was still too tied to her apron strings to get an apartment of his own . This expression, dating from the early 1800s, probably alluded to apron-string tenure , a 17th-century law that allowed a husband to control his wife's and her family's property during her lifetime.

Related Words

• defenseless
• poor
• reliant
• vulnerable