Elizabeth Packard: A Noble Fight

5 "The Forms of Law"

5 “The Forms of Law” By June 1860, the conflict between the Packards had, quite literally, reached a maddening degree for both husband and wife. Indeed, the entire family was in significant distress and there can be little doubt that Theophilus was truthful in his statement that it was impossible for him to “live with her comfortably in the family.” Unable to either cajole or coerce his wife into submission, he had reached an intolerable place in his marriage. He tried to send her away, at least temporarily, to stay with relatives. On 1May 1860, her elderly father, Samuel Ware, wrote Theophilus that he was “willing to do anything consistent with my age and infirmity” to help, but thought it unwise to send Elizabeth on the lengthy trip to his Massachusetts home. “As a last resort,” Ware wrote, “she should go to some Hospital near at hand.”1 Theophilus also tried to send her for an extended stay with her brother, Samuel, in Batavia, Illinois, forty miles from Manteno. But this plan evidently collapsed in an argument over whether or not she could have $10 to take on the trip. Few of the remaining options exercised by other men in unhappy marriages were viable for Theophilus Packard. Desertion was the choice of some, who simply walked away from troubled relationships. But desertion would mean loss of his children, home, and position in his church and community. He rejected divorce on religious grounds, even though divorce was by then relatively easy to obtain in Illinois. Indeed, by 1859 Illinois actually led the nation in granting divorces.2 Of the options available to him, declaring his wife insane was the most practicable and least socially objectionable. Her past history of treatment at an asylum lent credibility to the suggestion that she was once again insane. Elizabeth, too, was at an impasse in the marriage. She acknowledged her husband’s role as head of the family; but found his requirements for submission overwhelming. She explained that her husband’s “education” led him to believe “that his marital authority was the foundation stone [of marriage].” She added, “He, of course, conscientiously claimed, what I was too willing to grant, viz.: subjection to his will and wishes.”3 She wrote that “the moment a husband begins to subject his wife, that moment the fundamental law of the marriage union is violated . . . the husband has taken the first step towards tyranny, and the injured wife has taken the first step towards losing her natural feeling of reverence towards her husband.”4 She explained: “My husband claims . . . that my rights of property—my parental rights—my rights of opinion—my rights of conscience are all to be subject to his will.” She rejected the notion that she must “subject these inalienable rights of womanhood,” declaring that “the claims of a moral, accountable agent under God’s government” forbad her from doing so.5 Although she had long resented her husband’s treatment of her, she wrote that only recently had she “reached that stage of womanly development where I had the moral courage to defend myself by asserting my own rights.”6 She knew from experience that in other circles the ideas her husband so strenuously opposed were considered neither aberrant nor disruptive. She knew, too, of many couples who, like the Henry Stantons and the Gerrit Smiths, embraced the same ideas and acted as partners to promote reform. These provided the models to which she aspired. She believed sincerely that she, like those forward-looking reformers, was simply ahead of her time, writing , “It is my fortune . . . or rather misfortune . . . to be a pioneer, just about twenty-five years in advance of my contemporaries,—therefore, I am called crazy, or insane, by those so far in my rear, that they cannot see the reasonableness of the positions and opinions I assume to advocate and defend.”7 She, of course, had options for dealing with her troubled marriage other than silent submission or open rebellion. But she would reject long-term separation, desertion, or divorce for many of the same reasons her husband did. The decision to stand her ground appears to have been based, in part, on questionable advice from the friends in New York who encouraged her to assert her rights and those in Manteno who assured her, erroneously, that she could not be committed without a trial, at which they were certain she would be proved sane. In refusing to submit to the authority...