The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear

Elizabeth Packard’s behavior was consistent with the virtues and values expected of an educated middle-class woman of the mid-19th century. Theophilus acknowledged that he had no complaints about her as a wife until she began to disagree with his dictates for their church. For Theophilus, it was evidence of her “insanity” that she had maintained her composure and serenity in their household and had appeared to turn on him without warning. In his conversations with McFarland, Theophilus even attempted to paint himself as a victim, claiming that he did not anticipate the risks he incurred in marrying someone who had once been considered “insane.” He would have been privy to the knowledge of her stay in Worcester State Hospital, as he had known Elizabeth’s family since she was 10. As a minister’s wife, higher expectations would have been placed on Elizabeth to live a godly life and set an example for their parishioners, and it was likely that the support that Theophilus managed to muster for his petition for her “insanity” had to do with judgments leveled against her based on that criteria. Moore does not mention whether or not those who supported Theophilus in his petition to send Elizabeth to a psychiatric hospital were also aware that the money being provided for a new church was attached to the promise that Theophilus encourage his congregation to abandon abolition.

When Elizabeth began asserting her views, her extensive knowledge of the Bible and her deep familiarity with the respected theological scholarship of the time posed a threat to her husband because he was not in a position to justify the changes he had made to their church doctrine or to debate with her at the same level. What he and his supporters attacked, instead, was Elizabeth’s assertion of her human rights through her identity as a child of God. Elizabeth’s unwillingness to follow her husband’s instruction and abandon abolition would have meant rejecting the essential concept in which she so deeply believed—that all of God’s children are equal in his eyes and that progression toward equality of rights in society should be made to reflect what God had taught his followers about how to view and treat one another.

Abolitionist Christian doctrines held an enormous following, and the holiness to be found in advocating for the eradication of enslavement was a core tenet of many religious denominations. Elizabeth and Theophilus were from Massachusetts, a state with an overwhelmingly religious, philosophical, and political adherence to abolition as a moral tenet. Abolitionism was entwined with religion and intellect. Like Elizabeth, many were called to it because they felt that all human beings were equal in the sight of God and therefore deserving of liberty. It should not be assumed that their desire to ensure the legal equality of their fellow human beings can be extrapolated to include all human rights, as beliefs varied among those who counted themselves in favor of the cause. While many abolitionists believed that emancipated people of color should be granted certain legal rights, they may not all have personally supported complete social equality. Legal positions did not necessitate moral positions, but the abandonment of abolition would have, to a true abolitionist, been seen as a definite character flaw. Elizabeth was the one who did not waver in her beliefs. Theophilus was unable to accept any criticism of himself or his conduct, claiming “sectarian prejudice,” in which he asserted that those whose denominational differences of belief were at the root of their failure to support everything he thought and did. He did not feel compelled to answer for his decision to change the church’s trajectory, but the incendiary methods employed by Elizabeth in attempting to make the issue a subject of debate and discourse among the congregation was a hindrance and an insult he could not endure. The idea of ending the practice of enslavement of human beings in the United States also contained great political implications, just as Elizabeth was finding her voice with the earliest rumblings of division that would escalate into the Civil War while she was inside the hospital.

Theophilus’s calculated campaign to declare Elizabeth “insane” introduces the theme of Hypocrisy, Vengeance, Vindication, and Abuse of Power Versus Duty, Moral Obligation, Righteousness, and Advocacy for Others. Using his influence as a pastor to encourage his congregation to sign a petition against Elizabeth is a blatant abuse of power. It also speaks to his hypocrisy since he changed his views on slavery not for any theological reason but because he was accommodating a donor’s request. By contrast, Elizabeth speaks out against Theophilus’s changed stance on abolition out of duty and a moral obligation to remain true to her beliefs, which she can explain and articulate because they are based on a sure foundation of her faith, unlike Theophilus’s position which is based on convenience and opportunism. Because Elizabeth’s vocal opposition was embarrassing and counter-productive to his goals, he grew angry with her, which led him to act with vengeance, locking her in the nursery and staging a mock trial. By admitting her to the psychiatric hospital, he sought vindication for his assertion that she was “insane”: He expected to be proved right, which would allow him to save face before his congregation and remove the impediment she had become in changing his church’s stance on abolition.

Elizabeth expected that her introduction to McFarland would be a proper evaluation. The suggestion on McFarland’s part that Elizabeth could return home if she wished so long as she complied with what her husband expected of her is ironic—by presuming that she would be able to control her behavior at home, he is indicating a belief in her mental health. If she had truly been “insane,” her actions and beliefs would have been far outside her control. Moore does not attempt to delve as deeply into Theophilus’s perspective on Elizabeth’s “sanity” as she does with McFarland’s. Still, Theophilus had long used the “asylum” as a threat. He possibly thought that a brief period inside Jacksonville would be enough to force her into complying with his wishes, which suggests that Theophilus himself may not have thought she was truly “insane” but had simply been seeking reinforcements from a more influential authority to impress upon her the importance of behaving as she was supposed to in his home. He knew how much Elizabeth loved her children and the pain that it caused her to be away from them, and it seems that he also knew of their respect and love for her. His eldest sons were in open opposition to his decision to institutionalize her, and Theophilus probably realized that if he were going to establish the kind of control that he wanted to wield in the household, he must wear his children down in the same way that he hoped McFarland would wear Elizabeth down. As long as their children were willing to listen to Elizabeth and remained open to absorbing her ideas and thoughts, he was not going to achieve the totalitarian authority he expected and which he was certain he deserved. There is little doubt that Theophilus thought that Elizabeth was irrational, incorrect, and insubordinate for defying him, but the matter of whether or not he believed that she was irrevocably detached from reality is difficult to isolate from his reactive responses to her and what he stood to gain from claiming that she was “insane.”

In the behavior of Theophilus and McFarland, the theme of “Insanity” as a Prejudicial, Weaponized Label Difficult to Refute or Retract is revealed. Even if Theophilus believed Elizabeth was in control of her faculties—and thus, “sane”—he weaponizes the label of “insanity,” using it as leverage for behavior modification and submission from Elizabeth and his children. Similarly, the way McFarland links Elizabeth’s “sanity” with submission to Theophilus shows the weaponization of the diagnosis as a way to ensure male dominance and subjugate women. Rather than evaluating Elizabeth’s “sanity” from any medical or psychological standpoint, McFarland appears to gauge it based on expected standards of behavior for women as defined by society and their husbands.