A Patriarchal Society In Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter

“Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light” (Helen Keller). Friends not only provide one accompany, but they also give one strength and lead his or her to become a better person, especially in a patriarchal society. In the patriarchal society, most women are forced to play the inferior role in the family and in the society, required to be obedient and only work to serve their husbands. Under such a helpless condition, women would especially need support and help from female friends. Both women, Hester Prynne and Celie, live under such a dominant-man, and have no control over their marriage. Both Hester and Celie have no love and happiness with their husbands. However, Celie continuously receives helps

Neither Hester’s nor Celie’s marriage has love and happiness. The marriage between Hester and Chillingworth is not based on love. As Hester says to Chillingworth when he comes to interview her in the jail, “Thou knowest that I was frank with thee. I felt no love, nor feigned any”(Hawthorne 53). Obviously, Hester doesn’t love her husband and could not endure such a loveless relationship. Furthermore, this loveless relationship between Hester and Chillingworth leads to Hester’s unhappiness. Bitterly, Hester repeats, “Yes, I hate him!... He betrayed me! He has done me worse than I did him”(Hawthorne 144). Seven years after Hester’s adultery, Chillingworth still doesn’t mean to stop revenge. His revenge at this point is no longer to resolve the problem and has brought Hester an isolated life. Also, this revenge forces Hester into the pain of witnessing the suffering of her love, Dimmesdale. She feels betrayed by this man she once called “husband” and suffers in anger and disappointing. Like Hester and Chillingworth, there is also no love in the marriage between Celie and Mr._____. Celie says, “Mr.___ marry me to take care of his children. I marry him cause my daddy made me. I don’t love Mr._____ and