Many of things that got women committed in the 1870s would be considered normal behavior today.
Despite all the effort made today to de-stigmatize mental illness, the history of mental health and its treatment isn’t pretty. Even as late as the 1970s, lobotomies were widely practiced in the United States to “cure” things such as depression, anxiety, and even homosexuality. Now, imagine yourself in the late 1800s … let’s say around 1875. The germ theory of medicine had barely been worked out, let alone any sound understanding of the human mind and mental illness. People were still treated with bloodletting, mercury, and other dangerous practices. The definition of “insanity” was flexible, and often used to strip inconvenient family members of their money and land. Protections against being committed to an insane asylum in the late 1800s were few … and even fewer if you were a woman. With only the signature of a husband or a male guardian, women could be committed for the rest of their lives for “illnesses” that are now recognized as normal, healthy sexual behavior.
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