ball and chain vs hardship

ball and chain

noun
  • Anything that restricts one's freedom or opportunities. 

  • One's wife, as a symbol of restraint. 

  • A heavy iron ball attached to a prisoner's leg by a chain as a means of restraint. 

hardship

noun
  • A burden, a source of difficulty that could impose a barrier. 

  • Difficulty or trouble; hard times. 

verb
  • To treat (a person) badly; to subject to hardships. 

How often have the words ball and chain and hardship occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )