Of American-English origin, the phrase ball and chain denotes a heavy metal ball secured by a chain to a person’s leg to prevent escape or as a punishment.

The earliest occurrence of this phrase that I have found is from the Rhode-Island Republican (Newport, Rhode Island, USA) of Thursday 21^st January 1813:

SIXTY DOLLARS REWARD.
DESERTED from the Garrison of Fort Wolcott, on the evening of the 19^th inst. JOHN DAVIS, a private Soldier in Capt. House’s company of Artillerists in the service of the United States […].—Said Davis deserted when a sentinel on post and took away with him JOHN ROUNDS, a prisoner confined for deserting from Capt. Bartlett’s company of Infantry; Rounds is about twenty-six years old, five feet seven inches high, has black hair, blue eyes and dark complexion, was born in or near Providence, wore away a blue sailor jacket with pearl buttons, blue pantaloons, shoes, and a thirty-two pound ball and chain.

The phrase ball and chain has long been used figuratively of anything seen as a heavy restraint. The following, for example, is from the Village Record (Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, USA) of Thursday 24^th August 1854:

There is a warm corner even in the coldest heart; and somebody, if that somebody can only be found, was made expressly to fill it. Thousands of both sexes live and die unmarried, simply for want of a proper introduction to one another. What an absurdity! There is not a woman nor a man of any age who might not find a suitable partner by using the proper means. The fact is that affection is smothered, choked down, subdued and paralized [sic] by forms and conventionalities of this etiquettish world. “Society” attaches a ball and chain to the natural feeling of the heart. The fair girl, with her bosom running over with the purest love for a worthy object, must take as much pains to conceal the fact, as if it were a deadly sin, and Heaven had not commanded us to “love one another.” Is this natural? No, it is artificial.

The phrase ball and chain is especially used of the matrimonial bonds; it denotes, in particular, a man’s wife or partner, also a woman’s husband or partner.

Some early occurrences of ball and chain used of the matrimonial bonds are as follows, in chronological order:

1-: From Our Costume, by the U.S. newspaper editor and women’s rights advocate Amelia Bloomer (née Jenks – 1818-1894), published in the Kenosha Telegraph (Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA) of Friday 9^th May 1851—reprinted from The Lily (Seneca Falls, New York, USA):

For us, common place, every day, working characters, who wash and iron, bake and brew, carry water and fat babies up stairs and down, bring potatoes, apples, and pans of milk from the cellars, run our own errands, through mud or snow; shovel paths and work in the garden; why “the drapers” is quite too much—one might as well work with a ball and chain. Is being born a woman so criminal an offence that we must be doomed to this everlasting bondage?

2-: From Whom shall we Marry?, an unsigned article published in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (New York City, New York, USA) of November 1854:

Wives, we are inclined to think, are less eager to enjoy their independence than to assert it. They do not cast off altogether the ball and chain of their matrimonial bonds, but show themselves so restless, that they keep their legal guardians in a state of constant suspicion and anxiety, lest they should escape and fly to the refuge of the bosom of some of their numerous admirers.

3-: From Donning Ball and Chain, a short story by Elizabeth Jordan, published in The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, Utah, USA) of Sunday 11^th September 1910:

“Oh, blind, blind!” she murmured, almost chokingly. “You’re all blind, and the blindest are those who should see most clearly. That’s the biggest stumbling block in my path—that I can’t make the unmarried women, the professional women, the working women, realize their glorious freedom and opportunities. Wives and mothers see it fast enough; they often tell me they feel their burdens; they’d follow me if they could—lots of them. But you free and childless women—each of you, every last one of you, have hidden in her a sentiment—a tradition—whatever it is, that makes her hanker for the ball and chain.”
She sank down again in her place as she spoke, her eyes dim. In none of us at that moment was there the slightest doubt of her absolute sincerity in her grotesque point of view.
“What—er—is your exact idea of the ball and chain, Mrs. Warburton?” asked the editor, with interest. “Do they represent to you matrimony and maternity?”
Mrs, Warburton straightened herself.
“Not necessarily matrimony and maternity in themselves,” she told him, composedly, “but the abuses to which they lead—the shifting of all the domestic burdens on to the woman’s shoulders.”

4-: From a United-Press report published in several newspapers on Saturday 11^th December 1915—for example in the Evening Ledger (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA):

NEW YORK, Dec. 11.—For two days after his marriage a year ago, Everett P. Ketchum, wealthy lawyer, and victim of the “heaven kiss,” lived in perfect bliss. His happiness suffered a serious jolt the third day though, he testified in Mrs. Ketchum’s suit for separation, when he returned home and found her at the piano singing:

You’ve a number and you bet your wife has got it.
Any hope of a reprieve is all in vain.
Matrimony is a crime,
And you’ve got to serve your time,
When your ankle wears the marriage ball and chain.

Ketchum testified the ball and chain were merely a figure of speech, representing in his case an oversufficiency of kisses and clinging embraces. It continued for 52 days, he said, until the end of their honeymoon, when Mrs. Ketchum left him.

5-: From The Washington Times (Washington, District of Columbia, USA) of Tuesday 15^th August 1916:

Back to First Love Bobs E. P. Ketchum
Lawyer, Wife Divorced Because Of Jingles, Weds Jennie Maud Kelly.

NEW YORK, Aug. 15.—Everett Phoenix Ketchum, the attorney whose jingles led to marital jangles and to a separation suit by his wife last December, is married again. Following a divorce obtained by his wife in Connecticut, he married Jennie Maud Kelly, his first love, in New Jersey, on Friday. It was the following chorus, sent by Ketchum after two weeks of matrimony, that started things, his wife said:

“When you’ve got the ball and chain around your ankle
And a stony-hearted jailer is your wife,
There’s no virtue in repentance,
You’ve got to serve your sentence,
Which is hard labor for life.

“You’ve a number and you bet your wife has got it,
And hope of a reprieve is all in vain;
Matrimony is a crime
And you’ve got to serve your time,
When your ankle wears the marriage ball and chain.”

The attorney is confident that the sentence for his second offense will be life.

6-: From Oliver’s Twist: Reel 2 of The Shooting Stars, by the U.S. short-story writer Harry Charles Witwer (1890-1929), published in Collier’s: The National Weekly (New York City, New York, USA) of Saturday 25^th June 1921:

As far as I am concerned, Rex, the meetin’ was the same as the first time a ferret meets a rat. It was a case of hate at first sight. He is a great big, fat, loud-mouthed four-flusher with a too hearty laugh. He deliberately attempts to commit suicide by askin’ me “How’s the ball and chain?” meanin’ my wife. Well, after he has apologized till I got sick of listenin’ to him, Rex, I remove my hands from off his throat, and he splutters can’t I take a joke, and I says it don’t look like it, does it?

7-: From the column Reflections Of A Bachelor Girl, by the U.S. journalist and humorist Helen Rowland (1875-1950), published in The Birmingham News (Birmingham, Alabama, USA) of Friday 16^th December 1921:

The success of a flirtation, as of other life comedies. depends SO much upon the effectiveness with which you make your exit.
If “the best of husbands is a golden fetter” and the best of wives is a silver hobble, no wonder the worst seem like an iron ball-and-chain.
When marriage is just a matter of chance, divorce is just a matter of time.

8-: From Busy by Eyes, a story by Marguerite Hurter, published in The Washington Herald (Washington, District of Columbia, USA) of Monday 22^nd May 1922:

That evening Jane was taken to the theater with Traverse and a party of friends who were continually twitting the young couple about their coming marriage.
“Only a few more days of freedom, old top,” Norman’s former college mate remarked. To Jane he warned:
“Young lady, get ready to put on the ball and chains [sic]! Marriage is a terrible thing—especially when you marry a wild young author—a Greenwich Village gorilla!”

9-: From Uncle Sam May Get You If Package Has Letter In It, published in the Wausau Daily Record-Herald (Wausau, Wisconsin, USA) of Tuesday 4^th September 1923:

Uncle Sam has just issued a warning to people not to enclose notes in parcel post packages. So when you mail her that box of candy you can’t even enclose a little love note without running great risk of being caught up on a federal charge and sentenced to prison instead of the marriage ball and chain. This says Postmaster Louis H. Cook, following the receipt of orders from the third assistant postmaster general this week.

10-: From The Evansville Press (Evansville, Indiana, USA) of Sunday 10^th January 1926:

Heavens! Boys Are Slaves
To College Girls

Slaves to beauty!
That’s the latest fad on the Evansville college campus young Valentinos are wearing chains on their wrists as a token that their hearts are pledged to some member of the fair sex.
Will the wrist “slave chains” ultimately lead to the proverbial ball and chain marriage? Whether they will or not doesn’t seem to worry Evansville college students for the chains are becoming more popular every day.
J. Bob Smith, freshman president, started the rage when he came back from the holiday vacation wearing a sliver and gold chain around his wrist, supposedly given to him by his “steady.”
The idea spread like wild fire.
“No doubt the fad started,” said an observer Thursday, “when a picture appeared in the newspapers showing Rodolph Valentino wearing a “slave chain.”
When asked if the girls supplied the chains, Marshall Miller exclaimed, “Of course the girls supply the bond and we are the victims!”