“Cattle come first, then men, then horses, then women” is said to have been the priority list of the old West. The phrase appears as “an old Texas saying” in Edna Ferber’s book Giant.
 
 
Montana State University News
The cattle came first: Students gather oral histories of Montana women
April 25, 2005—by Annette Trinity-Stevens
(...)
When asked about the meaning of place and its effect on her family, one woman quoted her father. “He said that men out here think that the cattle come first and the horses come second and then [the] women.”
 
Google Books
Giant
by Edna Ferber
New York: HarperCollins
2000
copyright 1952, 1980
Pg. 43:
“Well, you know the old Texas saying. In Texas the cattle come first, then the men, then the horses and last the women.”