That was the legal reality not that long ago.
When my parents bought their first home the bank would only look at my father’s income even though my mother was earning more.
My grandparents both worked full-time in the 1960s but my grandmother’s name wasn’t even on the title for their house, which took a fair bit of work to amend when grandpa passed away.
So it wasn’t just a social convention, married women were really seen as not having their own identity. You might be “Elaine” in conversation, but to your bank manager you were just “Mrs Robert”.
