The gemorah in Moed Katan Daf 8a tells of a man who saved money to be Oleh Regel, and his wife gave it a man who came the door asking for Tzedakah.
Although perhaps this is only a "kasha on amaaseh" how could his wife take the money from her husband and give it. It's not her money to give. Do we have to assume she gave it with his reshus? Why does the gemorah davka describe his wife giving the money.
Yehoshua, Yerushalayim, Eretz Yisrael
I have not found any of the Mefarshim who discuss this question so I will attempt to give my own explanation.
1. I think we may assume that she gave the money with her husband's consent. This is because a wife is not allowed to give a significant sum without her husband's consent. (See Tana d'Vei Eliyahu, chapter 9: "Who is an upright woman? -She who carries out the wishes of her husband.") I do not mean to say that it is not possible that there may be an occasional case where a wife takes money without her husband's consent, but rather I am arguing that we see from the Gemara that the possiblity that a wife might take her husband's money and give it to a "Sapdan" is a common enough scenario that justifies making a new Halachah for the entire Klal Yisrael -- that we do not eulogize 30 days before Yom Tov. If it would have been forbidden for the wife to do what she did, it is improbable that Chazal would have introduced a Halachah for an eventuality that would only arise in the event that someone does something forbidden. This is because it is not usual that people transgress the Halachah in this way, and there is a rule that "Milsa d'Lo Shechicha Lo Gazru Rabanan" -- "The Rabanan do not make a Gezeirah for an uncommon occurence" (Beitzah 2b).
2. I suggest that the wife gave the money for emotional reasons: When she saw the eulogizer, she spontaneously wanted him to give a Hesped for their deceased relative. The husband would not have given away the money on his own initative, because he understood that this money had been set aside for the Mitzvah of going to Yerushalayim, which was more important than the Mitzvah of Hesped. However, when he saw his wife give the money to the Sapdan, the husband also became emotional and on the spur of the moment agreed with what his wife had done. When Chazal heard about this incident, they decided that it was a frequent enough of a thing that, so they banned all Hespedim within 30 days of Yom Tov; they understood that people's money was needed at that time in order to perform the Mitzvah of going to the Beis ha'Mikdash.
3. The Gemara relates specifically that the wife gave the money in order to teach that even though there was no concern that the husband would give away the money for the journey, nevertheless it is likely that the wife will give away the money, and this is a sufficiently frequent occurence that justifies making a Gezeirah to ban Hespedim for a full 30 days before Yom Tov.
Kol Tuv,
Dovid Bloom