In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a woman named Hester Prynne has been imprisoned for having an affair. Read the following excerpt from the text surrounding her imprisonment and answer the question that follows.

"Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent; something which should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was to redeem the world. Here, there was the taint of deepest sin in the most sacred quality of human life, working such effect, that the world was only the darker for this woman's beauty, and the more lost for the infant that she had borne."

Which aspect of the historical context is most present in this passage from the novel?

Economic
Language
Religion
Politics