ball and chain vs hindrance

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. 

hindrance

noun
  • Something which hinders: something that holds back or causes problems with something else. 

  • The state or act of hindering something 

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