Obviously the Wicked Stepsisters are stock characters in the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. But whence come those tales, and what do the presence of such stock characters tell us? In his very readable narrative, The Great Cat Massacre, Darton traces the (often misunderstood) origins of the Brothers Grimm stories and lays out some compelling theories about the cultural/social factors that influence the tales.
In short, the stories are French, and they come from the period of landholders and peasant farmers, when mortality rates were shockingly high. Second marriages were common as older men took younger wives, then left them without resources or protection when they died. On the other hand widowers were as common since childbirth was such a dangerous proposition. Women who remarried could be expected to favor their children over those of a previous wife. The upshot is competition for scanty resources within a household and vilification of rivals; the universality of this problem is attested by the presence of the wicked stepsister in so many stories.
I don't think the same type of analysis would hold for Apuleius, since his story is less a folktale and more a satire, but the themes of competition and rivalry resonate just the same.
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