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The law did not apply to married women. They could be received at an asylum simply “by the request of the husband.”
The law gave him power “to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.”7
“Husband,” Elizabeth sighed, “have not I a right to my opinion?” “Yes,” he responded, to her surprise. But he added, “You have a right to your opinions if you think right.”
“A peace based on injustice…is a treacherous sleep whose waking is death. Your honor lies in waking out of it.”
“He has forced me from home as insane, when I am not insane. I shall not be guilty of the insane act of returning to such a protector.”10
“For woman’s sake I suffer [here],” she scribbled in her journal. “I will try to continue to suffer on, patiently and uncomplainingly, confidently hoping that my case will lead [the] community to investigate for themselves, and see why it is, that so many sane women are thus persecuted.”
Yet she’d insisted it was natural to behave as she did; to offer affection “would be an insane act in me.”
“that this Great Drama is a woman’s rights struggle. From the commencement…this one insane idea seems to be the backbone of the rebellion: A married woman has no rights which her husband is bound to respect.”
“If you continue to let our husbands oppress us,” she appealed to Lincoln directly in her book, “and free the black slaves as you seem determined to do, I shall call you partial in your element of justice… We [women] do want equal rights at least with a colored man.”
It isn’t fair for you to credit their lies—and discredit our truths!”6
Yet still, she held it in reserve. As long as he kept his word to help her, she did not think she would ever need to use it.
Her release, he announced with gravity befitting of the moment, had been “indefinitely postponed.”
And they had but one mission: sabotage of state property.
“Mr. Packard is a fool in calling me insane, because he don’t know any better. Dr. McFarland is a villain in calling me insane, because he does.”
