Send us Fan Mail In the 19th century it was surprisingly easy for a woman to be consigned to the misery of an asylum. Many in fact weren't actually mentally ill. Husband tired of his wife? A woman who bore an illegitimate child? A woman who didn't want to marry the man her parents had chosen for her? Or anyone, in short, who didn't conform to the narrow standards of society. Once a woman was incarcerated, it was almost impossible to get out of a place often described as 'death traps'...