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Since the common law of marriage deprives the married woman of her individual identity, she has therefore no chance, while her husband lives, to defend her inalienable rights from his usurpation.

Even her right of self-defense on the plane of argument is denied her, for when she reasons, then she is insane! and if her reasons are wielded potently, and with irresistible logic, she is then exposed to hopeless imprisonment, as the response of her opponent.

This is now her legalized penalty for using her own reason in defense of her identity! This is the modern mode of persecuting married women!

My husband has not only accepted of my identity as the law gives it to him, but he has also usurped all the minor gifts included in it. The gift from God, which I prize next to that of my personal identity, is my right of maternity -- my right to my own offspring -- which he claims is his exclusively, by separating me entirely from them, with no ray of hope from him or the law, that I shall ever be allowed to exercise a mother's care or control over them again.

Bereft of six lovely children by the will of my husband, and no one to dare defend this right for me -- for the law extends protection to such kidnappers -- indeed to me is a living death of hopeless bereavement!

Yes, any husband can kidnap all of his own children, by forcibly separating them from the mother who, bore them, and the laws defend the act!

The mother of the illegitimate child is protected by the law in her right to her own offspring, while the lawfully married wife is not. Thus the only shield maternity has under the common law, is in prostitution!!

Again my property is all shipwrecked, and legally claimed by this usurper. And as I did not hold it in my own name as the statute laws now allow, I am, on the principle of common law, legally robbed of every property right. The husband does not expose all his rights to usurpation when he marries; why should he make laws to demand this exposure to his wife and daughter? Are women in less need of protection than men, simply because they are weaker, and therefore more liable to usurpation? Nay, verily, the weakest demand the strongest protection, instead of none at all. When will man look upon woman as his partner, instead of dependent?

Oh, I do need the protection of law to shield my rights from my usurper! but I have none at all, so long as I am a married woman.

And Dr. McFarland assured me, too, that so long as I claim my right of opinion and conscience, no church will extend fellowship to me.

Therefore, my attempt to follow Christ by holding myself as a responsible moral agent, rather than an echo or a parasite, has cast me out of the protection of the law, and also out of the pale of the Christian church, if what the Doctor tells me is true.

Well, be it so! I am determined to ever deserve the love, respect, confidence, and protection of my husband. And I am equally determined to secure a rightful claim to the fellowship of all Christian churches, by living a life of practical godliness.

I remained at my father's house a few days only, knowing that even in Massachusetts the laws did not protect me from another similar outrage, if Mr. Packard could procure the certificate of two physicians that I was insane; for, with these alone, without any chance for self-defense, he could force me into some of the Private Asylums here, as he did into a State asylum in Illinois.

I knew that, as I was Mr. Packard's wife, neither my brother nor father could be my legal protectors in such an event, as they could command no influence in my defense, except that of public sentiment or mob-law.

CHAPTER IX.
My Successful Appeal to the Massachusetts Legislature for Protection.

I therefore felt forced to leave my father's house in self-defense, to seek some protection of the Legislature of Massachusetts, by petitioning them for a change in their laws on the mode of commitment into Insane Asylums.

As a preparatory step, I endeavored to get up an agitation on the subject, by printing and selling about six thousand books relative to the subject; and then, trusting to this enlightened public sentiment to back up the movement, I petitioned Massachusetts' Legislature to make the needed change in the laws.

Hon. S. E. Sewall, of Boston, drafted the petition, and I circulated it, and obtained between one and two hundred names of men of the first standing and influence in Boston, such as the Aldermen, the Common Council, the High Sheriff, and several other City Officers; besides, Judges, Lawyers, Editors, Bank Directors, Physicians and Merchants.

Mr. Sewall presented this petition to the Legislature, and they referred it to a committee, who convened seven special meetings on the subject.

I was invited to meet with them each time, and did so, as were also Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Denny, two ladies of Boston who had suffered a term of false imprisonment in a private institution at Sommersville, without any previous trial.