Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(mainly US) one’s wife.

1891		G.R. Sims ‘Tottie’ Dagonet Ditties 126: Down upon my ‘bread and cheese’ / Did I drop and murmur, ‘Please / Be my “storm and strife,” dear Tottie, / O, you darlingest of girls!’.
1919		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 79: It’s the rhyming slang. Storm and strife that’s the wife.
1922		Appleton Post-Crescent (WI) 12 May 11/1: Flapper Dictionary storm and strife – A married Cake-Eater’s way of referring to his wife.
1930		G. Milburn ‘The Boomer’s Blues’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 242: Met a little broad in ’Frisco, / Ast her to be my storm and strife.
1940		D. Maurer Big Con 196: ‘Storm-and-strife’ is a common argot word for wife.
1948		Sun. Times (Perth) 25 Apr. 35/2: Mince-pie for eye; lump of lead for head; twist and twirl for girl; storm and strife for wife.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 227: storm A wife.
1953		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl. (2nd edn).
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
2000		T. Berger Return of Little Big Man 280: I probably wouldn’t mention any women in connection with him was it not for Lulu, his storm and strife, accusing him of being too intimate with a number.