How did the people of Nathaniel Hawthornes time feel about guiltsincrime and adultery?
If there were no guilt in crime, or in adultery, Hawthorne’s book The Scarlet Letter couldn’t have been written. One can infer that, just like today, most frowned upon adultery, and most crime engenderef guilt, but that didn’t prevent the incidence of crime or adultery then, any more than it does today.