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"Ah, loyal to your sex, I see.”

Early in the play, the County Attorney utters this reply to Mrs. Hale after she disputes his conclusion that Minnie is a poor housekeeper. It turns out he is quite right about Mrs. Hale, if not about Minnie. Mrs. Hale is indeed “loyal to her sex,” deeply suspicious of men and sympathetic to Minnie’s plight as the wife of the cold and abusive John Wright. But the same can be said of the men in the play. Mr. Hale and Mr. Peters (the Sheriff) show not an ounce of affection for their wives, and none of the men once consider the possibility that Minnie might have been the victim of domestic abuse. Instead, the men go off together, concerning themselves only with things that men consider important. Meanwhile, they gang up on the women, maligning Minnie for her poor housekeeping and mocking their own wives for concerning themselves with “trifles.”

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