Love & Passion Quote by Richard Steele

Steele’s sentence performs the genteel sleight of hand that made early-18th-century “politeness” culture feel like moral progress while keeping power exactly where it was. He opens with a supposedly neutral observation - women are “naturally more helpless” - and then pivots to a prescription for male behavior: the honorable man should factor that helplessness into every “commerce” with her. The trick is that the courtesy sounds protective, even enlightened, but it quietly recasts inequality as nature, and nature as a mandate.

The word “commerce” is doing heavy lifting. It’s not just about romance; it covers the whole social marketplace: courtship, money, reputation, access. Steele, a key voice of the Spectator era, is writing in a moment when urban life and mixed-gender sociability are expanding, and men are being asked to trade in brute authority for manners. His “honour and sense” doesn’t abolish male control; it refines it into etiquette. Power becomes paternalism: you may lead, so long as you lead gently.

Subtextually, the line also polices men. Masculinity is defined as restraint: don’t exploit, don’t scandalize, don’t appear predatory. Yet the restraint is premised on a female deficit, not female agency. Women are framed as inherently vulnerable participants in public life, which justifies surveillance, guardianship, and the idea that their consent is always compromised by their condition. Steele offers a moral upgrade for men, but only by freezing women into the role that makes male virtue possible.