Lucy Stone's Decision to Marry and Its Impact on the Women's Movement

Susan B. Anthony, a prominent figure in the women's rights movement, had strong views on marriage. Despite receiving offers of marriage, there is no record of her having a serious romance. Anthony loved children and helped raise the children in the Stanton household. She expressed frustration when her co-workers in the women's rights movement married and had children, which limited their ability to work for the movement. Anthony's remarks caused a temporary rupture in her friendship with Lucy Stone when Stone abandoned her pledge to stay single. Journalists often asked Anthony why she never married, to which she gave various responses, including that she never found a man necessary for her happiness and that she valued her freedom too much to become a man's housekeeper. Anthony opposed laws that gave husbands complete control over marriage, such as Blackstone's Commentaries, which stated that a woman's legal existence was suspended during marriage. In a speech in 1877, Anthony predicted an epoch of single women who would not accept marriage with subjugation.