Apron Strings

"Tied or pinned to a woman's apron strings - continually in a woman's company, unwilling to quit her side.

'If I was a fine young, strapping chap like you, I would be ashamed of being milksop enough to pin myself to a woman's apron-strings!'
Dickens

'And as for her, with her little husband dangling at her apron-strings, as a call-whistle to be blown into when she pleases - that she should teach me my duty!'
A. Trollope"

James Main Dixon, English Idioms, Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd, London and Edinburgh, 1944, p.14