10/16/2025
In 1860, a woman disagreed with her husband about religion. So he had her locked in an asylum for three years—and it was completely legal.Her name was Elizabeth Packard. She had been married for 21 years. She was raising six children. And she dared to question her husband's strict Calvinist beliefs—attending a different church, expressing her own theological ideas, refusing to simply nod and agree.That was enough.Her husband, Theophilus Packard, a minister, had her committed to the Jacksonville Insane Asylum in Illinois. No trial. No medical examination. No evidence of mental illness. Just a husband's signature.Because in 1860 Illinois, that's all it took. A man could institutionalize his wife simply by declaring her insane. She had no right to defend herself, no right to refuse, no legal standing to say, "I'm not mad—I just disagree with you."Elizabeth arrived at the asylum expecting to find violent, dangerous women. Instead, she found something far more disturbing: rooms full of perfectly sane women whose only "madness" was inconvenience.Wives who talked back. Daughters who refused arranged marriages. Women who wanted control of their own money. Women who expressed opinions. Women who said "no."The asylum wasn't treating illness. It was enforcing obedience.Elizabeth could have broken under the weight of it—three years locked away from her children, labeled insane, powerless. Instead, she did something quietly revolutionary: she observed, documented, and wrote. She recorded the stories of women around her, noting their sanity, their suffering, and the system that silenced them.When she was finally released in 1863, her husband tried to lock her in their home, declaring her still incompetent. But Elizabeth refused to disappear quietly.She demanded a jury trial—and in January 1864, she stood in a courtroom and fought for something radical: the right to her own thoughts. The jury deliberated for seven minutes before declaring her completely sane.Seven minutes to confirm what should have been obvious from the beginning: disagreeing with your husband is not insanity.But Elizabeth didn't stop at her own freedom. She wrote books exposing the horrors of wrongful commitment. She published the stories of women she'd met in the asylum. She traveled, spoke, and lobbied lawmakers relentlessly.And she won.Because of Elizabeth Packard's advocacy, Illinois passed "Personal Liberty Laws" between 1867-1869, making it significantly harder to commit someone—especially a woman—without due process. Other states followed. Her work influenced not just commitment laws, but married women's property rights and legal personhood.She spent decades fighting so that no woman could be erased simply for having her own mind.Elizabeth Packard died in 1897, but her legacy lives in every law that says a woman can't be silenced just because someone finds her inconvenient. In every legal protection that requires proof, process, and the right to defend yourself. In every woman who refuses to pretend she agrees when she doesn't.The next time someone tells you feminism isn't necessary, remember Elizabeth Packard—locked away for three years for the crime of independent thought.Her husband wanted her silenced. Instead, she made sure her voice, and the voices of countless women like her, could never be locked away again.Sometimes the most dangerous thing a woman can do is refuse to pretend she's someone she's not.
