ABSTRACT
Hester Prynne’s public humiliation, eternally forced to wear a scarlet ‘A’ sewn to her clothing, remains the image most commonly associated with punishing sexual misconduct in colonial New England. Early modern leaders believed taking part in the community ritual of the sexual misconduct trial punished defendants while providing examples for would-be transgressors, though longterm punishments like Prynne’s were rare. Most defendants convicted on sexual misconduct charges were simply whipped or fined. Instead, their humiliation took other forms which reflected the immediate legal and political needs of the jurisdiction conducting the trial. These practices would change in the eighteenth century as new understandings of privacy for the middling and upper classes became a growing part of the Anglo-American world.
