Adultery in America- The Scarlet Letter

    Throughout the history of America, adultery has always been a generally debatable subject. While the settlers of America found adultery to be an act that required for the persons’ involved to be physically punished and sometimes even killed, Americans today view adultery in a much different light. Most people still agree that adultery is a rather horrible act to commit, but nowadays, it is not at all illegal. There are no strict laws prohibiting this act and people who commit adultery no longer have to fear for their lives. Unless of course, you are Tiger Woods and your wife (allegedly) chases you down with a golf club and beats you senseless after she finds out about all the women you have been with. In such a case like this, you may have to start fearing for your life. But for the massive number of Americans who choose to commit adultery today, there are really no severe consequences for their actions. While I personally find adultery to be truly repulsive and insensitive, I do not believe our government should be entitled to punish the offenders.
    In the text referring to adultery beginning on page 241 of The Scarlet Letter, it states that  many of America’s original colonies had strict laws prohibiting adultery. The Massachusetts Bay colony established their adultery law on October 18th,1631 and it proclaimed that if any man fornicates with another man’s wife, he shall be punished by death. Many other colonies followed suit and established laws that required offenders to be beaten and sometimes killed. They also required the adultery participants to be publicly ridiculed for their actions that they believed greatly dishonored God.
    While I do understand that times were very different back when America was initially established, I find it so incredible that adultery, which was once something so taboo, is now only frowned upon. In our society today, people commit adultery all the time. The media tells us daily of new tales of adultery that were committed by celebrities and even political workers. While these people technically do receive some sort of public ridicule, they do not receive much more than that. Our government is no longer involved in these affairs and I believe that this is the way that it should be. If somebody decides to engage in a sinful act, then I believe it should be up to them. They will be the one’s who have to live with a guilty conscious and personally I find that to be punishment enough.