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. 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." To another, she answered, "I never found the man who was necessary to my happiness. I was very well as I was." 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!" Anthony fiercely opposed laws that gave husbands complete control over the marriage. 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". 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." Views on abortion Anthony showed little interest in the topic of abortion. Ann D. Gordon, who led the Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Papers project, an undertaking to collect and document materials written by those two co-workers, said that Anthony "never voiced an opinion about the sanctity of fetal life ... and she never voiced an opinion about using the power of the state to require that pregnancies be brought to term." Lynn Sherr, author of a biography of Anthony, said that Anthony never stated her views on abortion, saying, "I looked desperately for some kind of evidence one way or the other as to what her position was, and it just wasn't there." A dispute over Anthony's views on abortion developed after 1989 when some members of the anti-abortion movement began to portray Anthony as "an outspoken