While Hawthorne was writing The Scarlet Letter, the first women's conference was held in new york (1848). At this meeting, feminists raised the issue that women and men have equal property rights, pointing out that women "once married, they are like death from a legal point of view." He (her husband) took away all her property rights, even the salary she earned. "They suggested that women should work on an equal footing with men in order to get rid of their dependence on men from an economic perspective. In fact, in the patriarchal society, men refuse to give women equal economic rights, not only because they want to possess all the wealth, but also because men have long realized that when women gain economic independence, they will no longer be satisfied with their own wings, but will strive to seek independent ideas and a broader world.
Hawthorne's ancestor William Hawthorne came to America in 1630. He served as an official in the Massachusetts colony and publicly expelled and whipped a Quaker woman. John hawthorne, Hawthorne's great-great grandfather, was one of the three judges in the notorious witch trial in Salem in 1692. According to his verdict, several witches were hanged. One of Hawthorne's purposes in writing The Scarlet Letter is to "shame them (ancestors) and pray to wash away any curse they have caused since then."