A common central theme of such literature and folktales is the often forceful "taming" of shrewish wives by their husbands.[2] Arising in folklore, in which community story-telling can have functions of moral censorship or suasion, it has served to affirm traditional values and moral authority regarding polarised gender roles, and to address social unease about female behavior in marriage.[2]

This basic plot structure typically involves a series of recurring motifs:[2] A man, often young and penniless, marries a woman with shrewish or other negative qualities (laziness, etc.), for her dowry or other reasons unrelated to love, despite another trying to talk him out of it.[2] She may have a more docile but unavailable younger sister, for contrast, and/or an even more shrewish mother.[2]

The taming process begins immediately after the marriage, and does not last long, sometimes only the wedding night itself.[2] It involves denial of intimacy by the husband to the bride, and often also has several other features, including coercion (e.g., by violence, sleep deprivation, and/or starvation) to induce submission, and psychological manipulation (e.g. animal abuse, usually targeting cats, in front of the wife).[2] Capitulation by the "shrew" happens suddenly, she transforms into a "model" wife, and the couple live happily ever after.[2]

A variant suggests that the taming must be done early: The one who had tried to talk the young man out of the marriage (often the bride's own father) sees that it worked on the bride, and tries it on his own wife unsuccessfully because she already knows he is meek.[2] Many of these elements, including denial of food (through trickery) and psychological manipulation (without animal abuse), were reused by William Shakespeare in his play The Taming of the Shrew, which closes with the reformed shrew giving a monologue on why wives should always obey their husbands.