Many poor women didn't marry (that hasn't changed). They lived in service.

Family businesses and especially farms offered an appreciating investment that middle-class women (or their children) maintained access to. And there was social pressure to financially support wives indefinitely, even if you wanted to schtupp the maid, and it was difficult to marry that maid.

Wealthy women had jewels, real estate, property their male relatives held in trust, etc. And, of course, your male relatives were a threat, legal and physical, in their own right.

What has changed is the overemphasis on salaried income. Particularly future salaried income.