[Sundae]

Both my grandmothers were financially subservient to my grandfathers.
My Nanny - the one I knew and spent a lot of time with - was a very difficult woman (possible mental health issues) married to a very gentle man.
My other grandmother, who died when I was a baby, was married to a very difficult man who did not support her or the family. They stayed married, of course, but the amount of money he handed over for "housekeeping" barely fed them. And he then complained about the meals.
It is such a familiar story of the time - books and plays mention it all the time, whether it's a feature of the plot or just an incidental detail.

Great Aunt Alice stayed a spinster (awful word) to further her career and then look after her parents. She had to make a choice.

Mum handed over the family's finances to Dad, with pretty poor consequences. He was - and is - an impulse spender. Something I either learned or inherited. They are comfortable now, although Grandad's small inheritance and Auntie Alice's certainly helped. But it's more from Mum's pensions, which she did not tell Dad about, and felt she didn't need to as they were taken directly from her pay-packet.

So this is one and two generations ago. Women - strong women - still being financially dependent on men. Not sharing the costs.

Life has changed. Or should have changed. I grew up sharing the costs. I'm poor. I explain this at the outset of any evening out - I'm willing pay my way or I don't go. Men and women have been kind enough to pay for me, but I do not expect it or think it's rude if they don't.

The rich don't count. They've always had different rules.
And maybe the middle class did too.
But where I came from, no woman was seen as frail - unless she was actually ill.
She just had to hand her life over to her man. And if she worked all day and still came home and cooked and cleaned and blacked the stove, she'd better make sure she cleaned the steps, or her neighbours would stop by to find out why not.

FTR, all of the above is simply anecdotal and not really meant to be a rebuttal.
Y'all know I'm not really anti-male.
I'm just sharing.