1
general::
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 apronstring tenure, a 17th-century law that allowed a husband to control his wife's and her family's property during her lifetime.
American Heritage Idioms