Let's say it was a father's ambition that his son become a troll. The son had once envisioned a better, brighter future for himself. But pleasing his father was always uppermost in his decision-making. So, the son became a troll. A very inept troll at that since his heart was not in his vocation.

In such a case we would say that the locus of the son's doomed ambition was his father's approval. A thing quite outside the son himself.

In your rendering of "how women think," the locus of their fidelity to their commitments is not to be found in themselves or their personal integrity - but in the desire to be owned and renamed by the lord of the manor as the property of the lord of the manor. But at least he didn't ask them to become a troll.