Curious Facts

Before leaving her home she hugged and kissed her children at dawn and she was to return at dinner. But her husband signed a paper and she never came home. Meanwhile, she changed the course of law that no one could.

In May 1860, Illinois, USA Elizabeth Packard's husband Theophilus— a well-known minister and held in high esteem around his people.
That day he was done with the question of his wife on theology, on bible without any remorse or public apology. So, he prepared a document, signed it to declare her mad.
The Illinois law allowed that only husband's signature was enough to declare his wife insane. After that document she was sent into Jacksonville Insane Asylum. No other evidence was required.
She was innocent as an angel, she did no crime, only expressed her views. That disagreement was considered enough at that time (1860) to ruin a woman's life.
Soon she found that no women in that asylum was due to insanity. They were the victims of a horrible law. Elizabeth saw it as an opportunity to free other women in asylum as they were neither insane nor criminal.
The asylum was prison for women who:
Questioned
Caused inconvenience to the illusion of their husbands
The asylum was a tool for women submission.

She documented everything and she stole a page hidden from administration tucked in her dress. She began to write. She was there for there suffering tortures of teaching that "good women is one that does not ask questions" it was aimed to tear down the will of women in the asylum.

Meanwhile, she was given the chance of Public jury trial to which her husband agreed. Her husband had expected that jury would not side with a woman.

break them. Three years of forced obedience, of being told that a woman who argued was a woman who was sick.
In the courtroom, her husband repeated the same allegations as mad, sacrilegious in talks and unfit for women behaviour.
She explained in precise words " my insanity is free will, I believe in free will, but he believes in predestination".
The courtroom was packed.
Theophilus repeated his accusations: unstable, hysterical, deluded, prone to inappropriate theological opinions clearly beyond a woman's proper sphere.
She remained calm and rational during her arguments. She recorded the testimonies of women who were imprisoned for petty reasons in the asylum. "I do not ask for pity," she said quietly. "Only for justice." She spoke for hours and Only seven minutes of deliberation, jury declared her sane. She kept mentioning her testimonies that she had colled for this moment for three years.
Jury declared that it was her right not insanity. Theophilus had spread the word that she was dangerous upon he being set free. He took all the possessions and children so that she could be recommitted.

She published her hidden notebooks. She self-published "The Prisoners' Hidden Life" in 1868, a firsthand account of how commitment law was being used not to protect vulnerable people but to silence inconvenient women.

She went on around the country giving speeches, writing in newspapers that listened and spoke before judges.
She had relaised that she was not alone in this fight, she had to fight for women who remain imprisoned in asylum for
Managing money,
Talking a lot
Questioning predestination

She was successful that Illinois passed commitment reform legislation in 1867.
Other states followed.

The reforms Elizabeth fought for required medical examination before commitment, legal representation, the right to a jury trial, and evidence beyond a husband's word.
She lived years without her children during asylum and legal fight which could not be returned to her.
Her children never got along with her due to believe in their father's narrative caused by separation. She lived and died in extreme poverty alone in her world leaving a free life for those women who could not speak.
Elizabeth Packard died in 1897 at eighty-one years old, having spent thirty-seven years fighting for a principle most people in her era were not ready to articulate:
That marriage gave a husband authority over many things, but it did not give him authority over his wife's mind.