Even though he insisted on picking a humbly born woman for his wife (possibly to spite his subjects for demanding that he marry and produce an heir), Griselda’s ancestry allows Gualtieri to center much of his abuse around class issues. While her character and temperament are sufficiently noble, without her husband’s protection, she is still vulnerable to being treated as a low-class person. Gualtieri’s desire to test Griselda is never explained, especially since she doesn’t seem to have given him any reason to doubt her total obedience. Thus, when Gualtieri pushes things as far as pretending to murder their child, the tale takes pains to describe her grief so that readers won’t think that she is insufficiently maternal or loving. Griselda, it is clear, feels pain and suffering, but through extreme self-control, she ignores her instincts in order to obey as she promised to do.