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Puritans In The 19th Century

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Many civilizations are known not for their simplicity or faithfulness to their people, rather, they are known for their war tactics and brutality. The puritans, although attributed with many successful events in the forming of early America, were well known for their love of punishments, as such, he infamous novel, “The Scarlet Letter” written by John Hawthorne in the year of 1850 was a novel is based on a woman living in the Puritan age in America. This woman, Hester, is scorned by all the Puritans in her town for having an affair and conceiving a child who is scorned as well. Consequently, the woman was forced to wear a scarlet “A” for adultery as punishment. The Puritans are an extremely ironic religious group of people, they claim to serve …show more content…

The Puritans had numerous degrees of beliefs where family structure, society, and most importantly, religion is concerned throughout the Puritan colonies. Puritanism began in the early seventeenth century as a religious reform movement, it originated when the people of the church of England sought to “purify” the church. Puritans lived in villages that were made up of four city blocks. The Puritan family was a social unit of society, but was very basic as well. Everyone in the village had specific responsibilities, the father was over the wife, the children, and the household itself. It was also the father’s job to teach the child to love, serve, and put God at the center of their life. Because of this very strong family structure based on Puritan customs, sin, such as sex outside of holy matrimony, and adultery, never went overlooked and the people who committed the sin were severely belittled. Hester Prynne, for example, had a child out of wedlock and was punished and disgraced in front of her entire Puritan village. As one of Hester’s punishments required her to wear a large scarlet “A” on her chest so everyone would acknowledge her sin. However, Hester had a very mild chastisement. In the seventeenth century, women who were guilty of sexual crimes of any kind were punished by flogging, or in even more extreme cases,

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