Puritan women play an important role in The Scarlet Letter. How would these Puritan women treat Hester, and how did they want to punish her?

In
chapter II, "The Market Place", the reader is finally introduced to .  However, before
she exits the prison we first meet the other Puritan women.  These "gossips" provide
the reader with a glimpse into the harsh Puritan life.

Goodwives, said a hard-featured dame of fifty, I'll tell ye a piece ofmy mind. It
would be greatly for the public behoof, if we women, beingof mature age and church-members in
good repute, should have thehandling of such malefactresses as this Hester Prynne. What think
ye, gossips? If the hussy stood upfor judgment before us five, that are now here in a knot
together, wouldshe come off with such a sentence as the worshipful magistrates haveawarded?
Marry, I trow not!

The women imagine how things would be
different if the...