Marital Power Exemplified in Mrs. Packard's Trial, and Self-Defence from the Charge of Insanity

by E. P. W. Packard

Now, I ask any developed man, who holds property which is rightfully his own, and no one’s else, how he would like to exchange places with me, and be treated just as I was treated. Now, I say it is only fair that the law makers should be subject to their own laws. That is, they should not make laws for others, that they would not be willing to submit to themselves in exchange of circumstances. Just put the case to yourselves, and ask how would you like to be imprisoned without any sort of trial, or any chance at self-defence, and then be robbed of all your life earnings, by a law which women made for your good (?) as your God appointed protectors! O, my government—the men of these United States—do bear with me long enough to just make our case your own for one moment, and then let me kindly ask you this question.

Won’t you please stop this robbery of our inalienable right to our own property, by some law, dictated by some of your noble, manly hearts? Do let us have a right to our own home—a right to our own earnings—a right to our own patrimony. A right, I mean, as partners in the family firm. We do not ask for a separate interest. We want an identification of interests, and then be allowed a legal right to this common fund as the junior partners of this company interest. We most cheerfully allow you the rights of a senior partner; but we do not want you to be senior, junior, and all, leaving us no rights at all, in a common interest.

Again, we true, natural women, want our own children too—we can’t live without them. We had rather die than have them torn from us as your laws allow them to be. Only consider for one moment, what your laws are, in relation to our own flesh and blood. The husband has all the children of the married woman secured to himself, to do with them just as he pleases, regardless of her protests, or wishes, or entreaties to the contrary; while the children of the single women are all given to her as her right by nature! Here the maternal nature of the single woman is respected and protected, as it should be; while the nature of the married woman is ignored and set at naught, and the holiest instinct of woman is trampled in the dust of an utter despotism. In other words, the legitimate offspring of the wife are not protected to her, but given to the husband, while the illegitimate offspring of the unmarried women are protected to her. So that the only way to be sure of having our maternity respected, and our offspring legally protected to us, is to have our children in the single instead of the married state!

With shame I ask the question, does not our government here offer a premium on infidelity? And yet this is a Christian government! Why can’t the inalienable rights of the lawful wife be as much respected as those of the open prostitute? I say, why? Is it because a woman has no individuality, after she is joined to a man? Is her conscience, and her reason, and her thoughts, all lost in him? So my case demonstrates the law to be, when practically tested.

And does not this legalized despotism put our souls in jeopardy, as well as our bodies, and our children? It verily does. It was to secure the interests of my immortal soul, that I have suffered all I have in testing these despotic laws. I would have succumbed long ago, and said I believed what I did not believe, had it not been that I cared more for the safety of my own soul, that I did the temporal welfare of my own dear offspring.

I could not be true to God, and also true to the mandates of a will in opposition to God. And whose will was to be my guide, my husband’s will, or God’s will? I deliberately chose to obey God rather than man, and in that choice I made shipwreck of all my earthly good things.

And one good thing I sorely disliked to lose, was my fair, untarnished reputation and influence. This has been submerged under the insane elements of this cruel persecution. But my character is not lost, thank God! nor is it tarnished by this persecution. For my character stands above the reach of slander to harm. Nothing can harm this treasure but my own actions, and these are all guided and controlled by Him, for whose cause I have suffered so much. Yes, to God’s grace alone, I can say it, that from the first to the last of all my persecutions, I have had the comforting consciousness of duty performed, and an humble confidence in the approval of Heaven. Strong only in the justice of my cause, and in faith in God, I have stood alone, and defied the powers of darkness to cast me down to any destruction, which extended beyond this life. And this desperate treason against manliness which has sought to overwhelm me, may yet be the occasion of the speedier triumph of my spiritual freedom, and that also of my sisters in like bondage with myself.

The laws of our government most significantly requires us, “to work out our own salvation with much fear and trembling,” lest the iron will which would hold us in subjection, should take from us all our earthly enjoyments, if we dare to be true to the God principle within us. So bitter has been my cup of spiritual suffering, while passing through this crucible of married servitude, that it seems like a miracle almost, that I have not been driven into insanity, or at least misanthropy by it. But a happy elasticity of temperament conspired with an inward consciousness of rectitude, and disinterestedness, has enabled me to despise these fiery darts of the adversary, as few women could.

And I cherish such a reverence for my nature, as God has made it, that I cannot be transformed into a “man-hater.” I thank God, I was made, and still continue to be, a “man-lover.” Indeed, my native respect for the manhood almost approaches to the feeling of reverence, when I consider that man is God’s representative to me—that he is endowed with the very same attributes and feelings towards woman that God has—a protector of the weak, not a subjector of them. It is the exceptions, not the masses of the man race, who have perverted or depraved their God-like natures into the subjectors of the dependent. The characteristic mark of this depraved class is a “woman-hater,” instead or a “woman-lover,” as God, by nature made him. This depraved class of men find their counterpart in those women, who have perverted their natures from “men-lovers,” into “men-haters.” And man, with a man-hating wife, may need laws to protect his rights, as much as a woman, with a woman-hater for her husband. Laws should take cognizance of improper actions, regardless of sex or position.

All we ask of our government is, to let us stand just where our actions would place us, without giving us either the right or power to harm any one, not even our own husbands. At least, give us the power to defend ourselves, legally, against our husband’s abuses, since you have licensed him with almost Almighty power to abuse us. And it will be taking from these women-haters no right to take from them the right to abuse us. It may, on the contrary, do them good, to be compelled to treat us with justice, just as you claim that it will do the slave-holder good, to compel him to treat his slave with justice. It is oppression and abuse alone we ask you to protect us against, and this we are confident you will do, as soon as you are convinced there is a need or necessity for so doing. And I will repeat, it is for this purpose that I have, in this pamphlet, delineated a subjected wife’s true, legal position, by thus presenting my own personal, individual, experience for your consideration.