"Trifles" means small things, insignificant details. While it is these "trifles" that give away Minnie's guilt, the women are the only ones who pick up on them. They put themselves in her shoes as any one of them might have done the same thing had they been in her situation. They recall the Minnie they knew before her marriage and all see what being married to such a cold man and isolated in such an unforgiving setting have done to the once happy girl who sang.
The women are her peers...not the men who are actually there to gather evidence against her. The women make a decision collectively to hide the things that would have convicted Minnie.
The reader wonders whether or not the men would have even discovered the evidence which condemns Minnie. They didn't take time to notice anything other than her unkept household. If the women had not been there to pick up a few things for her, perhaps Minnie's story would never have been told. They are "trifles" to the men, but they are the every day misery which tell the story of Minnie's neglectful and demoralising existence.
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