Hester 's punishment was made public so she could see she had sinned and would repent. The government ruling the town would do this so she would come back to the church with pearl. People today that commit adultery wouldn 't publicize what they did, They would 've kept it a secret. In both ways the adulterers are punished but in different ways. Present day people that commit this usually lose their spouse, become judged but those that know them, and would have an unbearable amount of guilt.
In the puritan society the adulterer has already been marked with the shame from her public hearing. In hester 's case, pearl was young kid who was too young to know what was going on with her mother. When grows up she’ll be judged by the town and others