In 1838, twenty-two year-old Elizabeth Ware married pastor Theophilus Packard, who was 14 years older and a colleague of her father’s, who was also a pastor. In the beginning, she did what was expected of her and kept silent, until 1848, when the Women’s Rights Convention came to Seneca Falls, New York. This event unleashed a national conversation that Elizabeth took part in, and her husband did not approve of this. Elizabeth came out of her shell, winning debates with her husband, which he did not appreciate.
Both Elizabeth and her husband were devout Christians, and a further schism was created when they disagreed on her husband’s teachings and sermons of his church, especially when his church switched to a more conservative doctrine and approach. Elizabeth refused to support him, believing doing so would be a betrayal of her faith. She believed in a God of Love, her husband, the God of Wrath. Elizabeth was much more charismatic and convincing in her arguments, and he feared others would leave the church to support her – he threatened to have her committed to an asylum if she didn’t change her position and support him.
Ok, now I have to say, reading this brought me to a boil, because this wasn’t just between a white man and his wife in the 1860’s – it happens in present times also with men of all stripes and backgrounds – Hello! Rather than doing the extra reading and research to feed the brain cells and improve their argument and position, some men will take the lazy, bullied approach and shut a female down, just because they are female and simply say – don’t criticize them and they, the female, are out of place. This is nonsense. As a matter of fact, it’s give-me-a-break, steups, eye-rolling nonsense – Hello again!
Elizabeth held to her beliefs, and her husband spread the word that his wife was unbalanced and insane. A group of his parishioners believed him and signed a petition to have her committed. And she was committed in June of 1860, against her will.
To her surprise, the state of Illinois allowed married women to be committed with the sole request of their husband, without an official hearing. Married women had no rights under the law – they were under the control and “protection” of their husbands. Also, Elizabeth did not know that the financial backers of her husband’s church would have replaced him if he did not subscribe to their new doctrine, and he was heavily in debt – he chose the church over her.
A second surprise for Elizabeth, once admitted to the seventh ward of the Jacksonville Insane Asylum, in Jacksonville, Illinois, she found she was not alone. There were several well dressed, cultivated, educated married women there that did not appear to be mentally ill. They all, like her, were independent, intelligent, opinionated, and a problem for their households. This asylum was partly a “storage unit for unsatisfactory wives”, Elizabeth observed.
At a time when women were dependent on their husbands for protection, Elizabeth knew she was alone on that front. She did, however, have several friends and allies back at home and her eldest son. Elizabeth soon found out that the Superintendent of the asylum, Andrew McFarland, was intercepting her letters to keep her isolated. The Superintendent believed that patients should become dependent on him for guidance, so he could mold them into new/better human beings. When she put her protests in writing, the Superintendent had her locked away in a more violent ward. Superintendent McFarland believed that Elizabeth was insane because she was outspoken and resisted her husband – this was by definition, insanity for a woman at the time – intellectual insanity, moral insanity!
Elizabeth did not give up. She continued to plead her case to the Superintendent, while helping others in the asylum. Three years would pass before her release, but her husband sought out another asylum he could send her to that wouldn’t listen to her protests.
Before her husband could commit her again, Elizabeth filed a petition in court to plead the case for her sanity, on the grounds that her husband would not let her leave their home – he locked her away in her room. She won her case. But her fight was not over.
She would take the next few years fighting for the rights of other married women in asylums and for the custody of her children, having to contend with the resistance of both her husband and McFarland and their powerful allies all along the way. These men continued to insist that she was insane. I must say, I developed a deep disdain for these two guys while reading this title – I loved the way things ended for both of them though (read the book to find out).
In my opinion, people with power are cowards. Once they have it, they become part of a network and are no longer individuals, each member only as strong as that collective network. They wield their power to protect one another, and protecting one another means resisting change. This network or circle, at the time, white men, could and did reach out to their contacts to have their wives committed if they were considered too troublesome and might hinder their career advancement.
Elizabeth changed all this. With the laws she helped pass, and the investigations to follow, committing married women without trail would become illegal, beginning with a law passed in 1865. She not only fought for her own freedom, but also the freedom and rights of others. She finally reunited with her children in 1869, nine years after she was originally committed by her husband.
The book was well researched, and was like reading a historical novel. The author, Kate Moore, describes the grounds, the interior and the conditions of the asylum in detail and gives vivid descriptions of the people involved as well. Moore’s depiction of Elizabeth’s trial and fight for her rights, and the rights of others, reads like a fast-paced drama – well done. The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore, was a page turner. I really hope you get this title and read about Elizabeth Packer, a trailblazer, that never gave up!