An Immoral Society

It is thought by some people that Puritan society was more moral than society today. The Bible guided their morals and religion brought their community together. This argument is inherently incorrect though because of the positive progression society has made since the 1600s. Based on the texts, The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible several conclusions can be drawn. The Puritans were a racist, homophobic and sexist society. Even though these three traits exist in our communities today, our society cannot be compared to the misfortunes of the Puritans’ way of living. The Puritans targeted other cultures, especially the Quakers, treating them with hate, violence, and discrimination. Additionally, the Puritans’ morals were based on religion, specifically the bible and Protestantism. This idea of a whole community basing morals off of religion creates some problems which immediately discredit Puritan ideals. Moreover, mortality has improved since the Puritan times because of what is understood as socially acceptable, anti-discrimination movements, and the lack of a strong religion in society.

The character trait of jealousy is very apparent among the Puritans, more so than people today. This can be seen in The Scarlet Letter when the main character, Hester, is standing on the scaffold looking out at the townspeople. Hawthorne makes it clear that she looks beautiful with a delicately embroidered scarlet letter on her chest. The response of some of the townspeople is that of jealousy: “It would be good if we stripped Madame Hester’s rich gown off her dainty shoulders; and as for the red letter, which she hath stitched so curiously, I’ll bestow a rag of my own rheumatic flannel, to make a fitter one!” (Hawthorne 30) The woman who says this sees Hester as a woman she would like to look like, she wants to take her rag and make a letter similar to Hesters. From these women, it is clear that jealousy is an idea embedded in their minds. Today, this amount of jealousy is not socially acceptable. Now people showing off talents are celebrated. For example, TikTok is a platform where people show their talents and even appearances. Whether that’s dancing, skateboarding, or just smiling into the camera. Either way, people today are more supportive of other people showing off their looks. In Puritan times Hester was ridiculed for embroidering her letter but today people are lifted for being proud of their good features. The positive change in society’s norms is obvious through the sin of jealousy. 

Besides jealousy, another fault of the Puritans was the way they treated people who were different from them. The Puritans have biased attitudes towards people of color and they even owned slaves. The Puritans thought of people of color as lesser than them and forced them to work without pay. In The Crucible the character Tituba is a slave from Barbados and represents the only character from the play not from New England. Tituba stands apart from any of the other characters in the play because of her race. She keeps to herself and seems almost invisible in many scenes. Before Tituba even confessed to witchcraft, the townspeople deemed her evil and automatically associated her with witchcraft because of her skin color and origin. “God’s condemnation was visible in the color of her skin” (Miller 26). The people of Salem saw her as evil simply due to her skin color, which shows blatant racism. Today society still struggles with racism but people are actively trying to prevent it through anti-discrimination movements. Protests like Black Lives Matter have been occurring more frequently, which advocate stopping police brutality and discrimination again people of color. Black Lives Matter has effectively spread awareness and education about issues involving race. It shows the large strides society has made to prevent racism. One cannot compare a society that owned slaves and saw them as forces of evil to a society that is actively preventing racism. Society today is much more moral and accepting because of this. 

The lack of morals in Puritan society can also be seen in their treatment of Native Americans. It is clear throughout the novel that Native Americans were treated poorly. The townspeople call them “uncivilized” and not fit to be around the Puritans. The novel makes Native Americans seem like idiots and animals. In one scene the townspeople all gathered because someone was causing a scene. Not knowing what the commotion was they started guessing, “it might be, that an idle or vagrant Indian, whom the white man’s fire-water had made riotous about the streets, was to be driven with stripes into the shadow of the forest” (Hawthorne 53) They thought it might be a Native American, drunk on whiskey, being beaten and then dragged back into the forest. This cruel behavior was sadly not uncommon in Puritan society which supports the idea that Puritans did not treat Native Americans well. Now our society has become much more accepting of Native Americans. An example of this is how society has corrected the language used to address Native Americans. In Puritan society, they called Native Americans “Indians” even though they were not from India. Since then terms have been changed and are more appropriate. This represents a change in society and how Americans are more accepting now, therefore more moral. 

One final group that the Puritans discriminated against was the Quakers. The Quakers were from Christian roots and were named “The Society of Friends.” Quakers believed that everyone was blessed by God and that God lives in us all. The Puritans, however, believed that one must earn their way to heaven through work and religion. This being said the Puritans were very intolerant toward the Quaker’s beliefs, which caused conflicts. The Puritans persecuted the Quakers “with beatings, fines, whippings, imprisonment, and mutilation.” (Sigmund 1) The Puritan government in Massachusetts even passed laws to prevent the Quakers from entering Massachusetts. They were afraid Quakers would change their society and give Puritans new ideas (Sigmund 1). This prejudice that the Puritans had towards Quakers proves their lack of morals. Today, however, society has been much more accepting of people from any religion. An example of this improved tolerance can be seen in the demographics of United States cities. In New York City  “one-in-ten people (8%) are Jewish, 3% are Muslim and another 3% are Hindu” (Lipka). Through these statistics it is clear that New York City has diversity and people of many religious backgrounds live together. Diversity in cities is something Americans take pride in. Looking back at Puritan times it is clear that morals have changed in religious acceptance, even if there are still large strides to make. 

A person’s morals can be based on many things: experience, wisdom, the people whom they are surrounded with. The Puritans base their morals on the Bible, which is an inherently immoral document. The Puritans’ whole society surrounds religion. If a Puritan were to skip church they would be snitched on and shamed. In The Crucible when Proctor is found out to be plowing on a Sunday, for the good of his family, he is looked down upon by everyone around him. His family is then called “the devil’s household”, simply for Proctor’s hard work. The Puritans got this idea from the Bible, which states that one must rest and pray on Sundays. The Puritans also based their punishment on the Bible. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester is punished for sleeping with someone when they were not married, which comes from one of the Ten Commandments in the Bible, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Everything in Puritan society comes from this book. But the book they are basing all of their decisions on is inherently immoral and subjective. 

The Bible is subjective to everyone which already makes its whole backbone immoral. An example of this is that the Old Testament of the Bible is followed by Jewish people whereas the New Testament is read by those who follow Jesus (Shook). There is no standard moral code across the bible. There is no structure or baseline to any of the Bible’s messages because of this. Additionally, strong followers of the Bible, like the Puritans, also follow the Bible no matter the condition. Even if the Bible says obscene or immoral things a true believer of it would not question what it says, they would submit to its teachings. 

“Submission to God and obedience to arbitrary rules is the opposite of taking responsibility for one’s own actions. There is no ethics here, nothing that leads towards independent thoughtful objectivity. Letting God decide all morality is the ultimate subjectivity: the whim of one individual decides morality. It’s a contradictory morality at that” (Shook).

A devout follower of the Bible is then the least moral of all people than since they do not think for themselves. Rather they only think about what God, Jesus, or a speaker in the Bible has to say. Discussing morality in the Puritan times is overshadowed by this constant following of the Bible. If the Bible is not moral, then all of the Puritan morals must be not credible. 

Another religious issue in Puritan society were their sermons. A sermon is a speech, given at church, about a moral subject. The Puritans have plenty of topics they would discuss in sermons like drunkenness, gambling, and adultery. This being said, Puritan sermons are a good way of looking at their morals and how religion was tightly connected to them. One sermon, written in 1675 said “That excess in wickedness doth bring untimely death” (Heyrman 1). The priest was explaining that those who are evil will die early. In Puritan times women who were deemed evil were sentenced for witchcraft and put to death. No proof would have to be offered, just that being called “evil” or “suspicious” was enough for hundreds of women to be executed. The Puritans lacked justice, a moral that Americans hold very dear today. 

Morals are standards for behavior or belief-everyone has them. But some people have stronger morals than others. Morals can waver with society-some points of history had stronger morals than others. But one thing can be certain, today’s society has stronger morals than in Puritan times. In Puritan times they lacked certain morals that people today have-they were very jealous, racist, and did not serve proper justice. Puritans also based most of their morals on the Bible, which does not set a good moral standard for any group of people. No one should look to the Puritans as a source of strong morals, instead, one should reflect on weak points of society and work to create equality. 

Work Cited:

1: Heyrman, Christine Leigh Christina Lee. “Puritanism and Predestination, Divining America,” TeacherServe®, National Humanities Center, http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/eighteen/ekeyinfo/puritan.htm.

2: Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter, 2018.

3: Lipka, Michael. “Major U.S. Metropolitan Areas Differ in Their Religious Profiles.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 27 July 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/07/29/major-u-s-metropolitan-areas-differ-in-their-religious-profiles/.

4: Miller, Arthur, and Susan C. W. Abbotson. The Crucible. Bloomsbury, 2014.

5: Simond, Carl E. “Quakers Fight for Religious Freedom in Puritan Massachusetts, 1656-1661.” Quakers Fight for Religious Freedom in Puritan Massachusetts, 1656-1661 | Global Nonviolent Action Database, https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/quakers-fight-religious-freedom-puritan-massachusetts-1656-1661.