Hester Prynne was just a woman who fell in love after her husband was presumed dead. Even though she and Dimmesdale made the mistake of adultery, they had a beautiful, strong daughter as a result. Unfortunately for Dimmesdale, he never had a strong father-daughter relationship with Pearl because he would have been ridiculed for being a reverend and for committing such a crime and not coming forward. Hester endured constant public shame, her own guilt, raising a daughter alone and having to make a living in a town where people constantly judged her for one mistake. However, while Arthur Dimmesdale faced self-inflicted punishment, he never lost his reputation in the town when it came out that he was most likely Pearl's father. Its priests worked to ensure that Dimmesdale's name remained in the city's good graces. Her status in the town allowed people to ignore the fact that she had committed the same crime as Hester, but she received the complete opposite reaction that Hester also experienced. In fact, he was praised for his actions, claiming that his actions served to teach everyone that "we are all sinners in the same way." They considered her actions a mistake rather than a crime, while sentencing Hester to the maximum punishment. No one questioned Dimmesdale's ability to do so