Brianna Winters Derevjanik Ms.

Capon Enlgish 10 Honors/Period 3 October 11, 2012 In both the article Womens Rights Wronged, and the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the reader is introduced to a female character who has been disenfranchised and marginalized by the world around her. She has been stripped of her human rights and left at the mercy of a cruel, patriarchal society. These two women, Aigul Saralaeva and Hester Prynne respectively, were in two very different situations, yet are similar in their suppression and lack of power. In the article, the new patriarchal society disenfranchises and marginalizes, or suppresses and takes away the rights of Aigul Saralaeva by not allowing her any individual political or social standing. She has no legal power, and because her marriage is purely religious, she owns nothing of what she shared with her husband before their separation. Likewise, the character Hester Prynne has very few legal rights of her own because she is a woman, and is entirely at the mercy of a society rules and run by men. Both women are unable to take legal action for themselves because they are not equal to the men whose say they would be battling. In both situations, religion plays a somewhat similar role. For Aigul Saralaeva, religion is the cause of her lack of legal marriage, which leads to her being unable to stand up for herself legally against her husband. In The Scarlet Letter, the religion is equivalent to the law of the land. When Hester Prynne commits adultery, considered a sin by the Puritan beliefs her town is run by, the law in turn punishes her. In both situations, a woman has no chance to defend herself against the law of the land.

While Pyrnne committed a crime in her community, and Saralaeva was left with nothing by her husband, their two stories share some similarities. Both were left as single mothers raising a daughter in the same society that is the cause of their situations. These are societies where a husband can beat his wife, such as how Aigul was beaten, and the wife cannot defend herself. However, they both find ways to financially support themselves and their daughters through a trade. In each case, the father is uncaring of his wife and child, leaving them without his support because he has no obligation to help them. Were they not both living in such strong patriarchal societies, and in a community where women have equal rights, they may not have been in the situations they were. As aforementioned, Prynne and Saralaeva were in extremely different situations, yet their treatment was similar. In both cases, there is a woman trying to support a child without the help of a father, and the woman is left with no rights or legal freedoms by the patriarchal society in which she lives.