Feminist Criticism, based on "The Scarlet Letter (a)dorée, or the Female Body Embroidered, Of Gardens, Gold and Little Girls

Keep in mind that for feminist criticism patriarchic societies define gender roles based on biological sex functions, and that these roles and the rules that follow them are completely man-made, not God-given. The Puritans, one such society, gave symbolic meaning to all natural phenomena, and in this we can see how superstitious and ignorant they were for all their professed moral enlightenment. Their concepts of women can be traced to archaic myths of female fertility …

…who is the father. His suggestion that the others observe this in the child to be able to discover the other guilty party is rejected as being beyond what humans should do. They prefer to leave it to God. Hester never points out Dimmesdale as the father, and as he lacks the courage to say it outright, Hester has to face economic hardship. Chillingworth is the one who leaves everything to Pearl in the end.