Involuntary Commitment in the 19th century

[fantasticheria]

In the story I'm writing I have a character, who some people consider to be mad. His madness isn't obvious (his behaviour is kind of normal though a bit eccentric), but he talks about really weird things. At some point his sister, who is his closest relative, gets convinced that he has truly gone mad, and she wants to get treatment for him. She's

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[audela]

One novel from the Victorian era sprang to mind as possible useful background because a significant part of the plot is focused on a woman who is involuntarily confined. In Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White, published in 1860, the character Anne Catherick is confined in a private asylum for part of the time, and also lives with a woman who is essentially her keeper. Anne is definitely not psychotic, but is odd and strange enough that she's considered mad by many, and putting her in a private asylum is thought a kind way to treat her. I haven't read it in a while, but I believe there is a fair amount of description of the asylum.

And there was always the Mrs Rochester treatment (from Jane EyreI believe it would have been much more difficult for a sister to commit an unwilling brother than the other way around unless he was widely considered insane by friends and neighbors. The position of women back then would make it difficult for her to act independently, unless she has a male ally of considerable social standing in the

[fantasticheria]

Thanks for the suggestions! It'll be be easy to include a doctor as an ally in the story, and that will perhaps solve the problem of her being a woman and thus not in a very good position to make decisions for her brother.