The remaining female figures included during Goodman Brown’s induction into the ceremony obviously display ‘evil’ qualities, being in league with the devil. The description of the ritual includes significant displays of femininity, with women being repeatedly included within the ‘dark figure’s’ speech on depravity. First, he mentions “how many a woman, eager for widow's weeds, has given her husband a drink at bed-time, and let him sleep his last sleep in her bosom”. Explicitly referencing a wife as an example of impiety to Goodman Brown implies a narrative distrust among women’s faith. Discord present in marriage indicates a failing of holy matrimony, and furthers Hawthorne’s dialectic surrounding Faith’s failings to protect Goodman Brown from losing his religion. The story parallels Goodman Brown’s journey slightly, with Faith’s ‘poison’ being her now evident cooperation with the devil, and the husband’s death in her bosom signifying Goodman Brown’s own moral death with Faith’s failures.

 Infanticide’s disruptive nature contrasts again with the ‘saving hand’ of Hawthorne’s mother -- who may be the only moral ‘character’ included within the short story. The inclusion of an act explicitly tied to familial structures amidst a story heavily contingent upon marriage dynamics - or women’s role in a relationship - further explicates Hawthorne’s distrust towards women as upholders of piety. 
The dark figure mentions multiple sordid acts in his speech, but both of the acts pertinent to family include women as the evil purveyors. These may represent an implicit fear on Hawthorne’s behalf that women may resent nuclear familial institutions, and may revolt against it by killing its components. A fear exists of women rebelling against the institution of marriage, and threatening the religious cornerstone their sheltered role upholds. “Young Goodman Brown” seeks to explicate more than the shortcomings of public vs. private faith, and indulges itself in the institutions which make this dichotomy possible. Within marriage, the woman’s corrupting influence provokes infanticide and spousal murder -- just as Faith’s sin provokes Goodman Brown to surrender to the devil.
Women as symbols of piety and purity compose much of the literary canon of the 18th-19th century. Goodman Brown places his own moral burden upon his wife, and apparently blames her for his own religious shortcomings. A weaker paradise than Eden collapses upon Goodman Brown’s realization that his pure wife is also susceptible to devilish temptation. His Puritan ideals shatter, as both his wife and community reveal themselves to be facades. While Hawthorne’s critique of Puritanism seems fair, his overreliance on Faith (indicated prior to be a stand-in for all women) to guide their husbands morally, informs how gender relationships perform. Faith’s immorality is an excuse for Goodman Brown to descend into worldly cynicism -- if even his pure wife gives in to sin, then how can he avoid it?
“Young Goodman Brown” features little dialogue from any of these aforementioned female characters, but their influence on behalf of Goodman Brown indicates Hawthorne’s purpose for including the silent female ensemble. The corrupting influence ailing Goodman Brown may be more generally the Puritan pursuit of piety, but specifically includes dynamics of marriage which contribute to moral collapse. Hawthorne’s choice to include female characters in such numbers implies their role in immorality transcends their background presence in “Young Goodman Brown.”
