No, I thought that's where she was going but after she tells her story I got the impression she was only talking about the horrendous conditions under which she had to live. She's a cultured lady who came from wealth, lived on an estate and had a different kind of life.
Living under such conditions was difficult for anyone especially someone who had been so far removed from it. At the dinner party early in the movie one of the guests was asking Adare how he was adjusting to life in Sydney society and saying how it was hard on his wife. He said 'refinement counts for a lot but it's a handicap in a way.'
Also, when the governor was in the tub, he was talking about the conditions on the harbor. The focus was on how unsanitary and unsafe but they didn't mention anything about other issues like sex crimes. Hattie's problem is she's lost some of her refinement. She walks around not like a refined lady but a barefoot hobo-looking, drunken common woman. It's why the other woman won't go to her home.
She doesn't like all the noise the women in the kitchen keep making because it reminds her of those difficult times. And, the relationship between her and her husband changed because he married a lady and has worked hard to make something of himself but, as she says, she keeps slipping further down. Later we find out she had been getting a lot of help from old common Milly. When he calls her trash it is in reference to her not being having in a lady-like fashion but rather like common trash. Refined ladies don’t take up with a lover right under her husband’s nose and flaunt him around. They’re hypocritical but discreet. It also references how he found her when he got out of prison. She said she wanted to make a home for him to come home to but the harbor was about all she was able to do. She's still a lady so he feels unworthy of her in some ways yet she's not really that.
Woman, man! That's the way it should be Tarzan. [Tarzan and his mate]
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