Don’t Disagree with your Husband

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.

And here’s a woman who faced the same fate that you probably have heard of, just not her whole story. The muse of author of the “Great Gatsby”, her Husband F. Scott Fitzgerald, had her locked away too. She was “too much” for societies of that time. Today he’d be labeled as a narcissist.

Do you see this beautiful woman? Her name was Zelda Fitzgerald. She was betrayed by the man she loved and placed in a psychiatric institution. Her “fault”? Being a free woman.

Even today, people remember Zelda only as the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Few know that she was also a painter. And a gifted writer. But above all, she was a woman far too free for her time. She drove alone, wore her hair short, and was not afraid to love. That is how she met Francis Scott Fitzgerald, a name that would soon become legendary. He fell madly in love with this woman who was so full of life. Many of his works were inspired by Zelda, because a free woman is like a hurricane. Like a storm. She sweeps everything around her away. 

 

But he could not bear for her to shine. He could not bear that she wanted to be more than his muse. Over time, he became increasingly jealous and began preventing her from painting. He stole pages from her diary and passed them off as his own. But a free woman cannot be locked in a cage—she suffocates. You cannot confine her, push her into a corner, or silence her by force.

One day, she decided to publish Save Me the Last Waltz—a book that was not just a book, but her story. Their story. The story of a man who did not know how to love, who believed that loving and owning were the same thing, and of a woman who refused to give up, who wanted to fly on her own wings despite society, morality, and the world itself.

It was then that Scott had Zelda placed in an asylum. She was institutionalized and subjected to repeated electroshock treatments. Zelda never recovered. Fitzgerald refused to have her released, and so this beautiful woman spent the rest of her life locked away. Stripped of her voice, her spirit, her freedom—stripped of everything except his last name: Fitzgerald.
(From Facebook)

And here is what I want to say to all young women today: Do not let anyone steal your voice. Shout, fight, shine—but never allow yourself to be caged. Of all the things women can do in this world, raising your voice remains the most subversive of all. THIS  IS WHY I BLOG about hope and strong women. You are all my Dorothy’s.