Witches VS Patriarchy

When reading some old (19th century for example) story about a woman becoming "hysterical", I had the impression that the context often involved her husband making stupid decisions and her being powerless to stop it because she had no rights.

Made up example story:
A fraudster comes to town and starts door to door selling his scam investment. A woman opens the door, listens to the spiel and tells him to go away. The fraudster asks loudly for "the man of the house", the woman tells him to go away again. The husband appears, the fraudster talks up his fragile masculinity and the dumb husband agrees that money is no business for a woman. At that point the woman knows that her gullible husband is going to do something very stupid that might bankrupt their family, but she is powerless to stop it, so at the same time she's angry, afraid, frustrated, desperate and pleading. And thus the fraudster tells the husband: "See, women are always hysterical for no reason and they should have no say in big decisions. Lets leave here and go over the contract in the bar."