Editing Susan B. Anthony (section)

===Views on marriage===
[[File:Portrait of Susan B. Anthony.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Susan B. Anthony]]
As a teen, Anthony went to parties, and she had offers of marriage when she was older, but there is no record of her ever having a serious romance.<ref>Sherr (1995), p. 5, 13.</ref>
Anthony loved children, however, and helped raise the children in the Stanton household.<ref name=barry-64/> Referring to her niece, she wrote, "The dear little Lucy engrosses most of my time and thoughts. A child one loves is a constant benediction to the soul, whether or not it helps to the accomplishment of great intellectual feats."<ref>Harper (1898–1908), Vol. 1, [https://archive.org/stream/lifeandworksusa00unkngoog#page/n271/mode/2up p. 214.]</ref>

As a young worker in the women's rights movement, Anthony expressed frustration when some of her co-workers began to marry and have children, sharply curtailing their ability to work for the understaffed movement. When [[Lucy Stone]] abandoned her pledge to stay single, Anthony's scolding remarks caused a temporary rupture in their friendship.<ref>Barry, p. 119.</ref> Journalists repeatedly asked Anthony to explain why she never married. She answered one by saying, "It always happened that the men I wanted were those I could not get, and those who wanted me I wouldn't have."<ref>''The Woman's Column'', August 14, 1897, quoted in Sherr, p. 13.</ref> To another, she answered, "I never found the man who was necessary to my happiness. I was very well as I was."<ref>''San Francisco Chronicle'', June 28, 1896, quoted in Sherr, p. 13.</ref> To a third she said, "I never felt I could give up my life of freedom to become a man's housekeeper. When I was young, if a girl married poor, she became a housekeeper and a drudge. If she married wealth she became a pet and a doll. Just think, had I married at twenty, I would have been a drudge or a doll for fifty-nine years. Think of it!"<ref name="pp. 858–60"/>

Anthony fiercely opposed laws that gave husbands complete control over the marriage. [[Commentaries on the Laws of England|Blackstone's ''Commentaries'']], the basis for the legal systems in most states at that time, stated that, "By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage".<ref>Gordon (2000), [https://books.google.com/books?id=kjq1rbyN_IQC&pg=PA41 p. 41.]</ref>

In a speech in 1877, Anthony predicted "''an epoch of single women''. If women will not accept marriage ''with subjugation'', nor men proffer it ''without'', there is, there can be, ''no alternative''. The woman who ''will not be ruled'' must live without marriage."<ref>"Homes of Single Women" by Susan B. Anthony, 1877, quoted in ''The Elizabeth Cady Stanton&nbsp;– Susan B. Anthony Reader'' edited by Ellen Carol DuBois, Northwestern University Press, Boston, 1981 and 1992, p. 148; {{ISBN|1-55553-143-1}}</ref>