**Over the next few months SUITE will be bringing you articles by Andrew Miller, Mui Thai fighter, romance & erotica writer, and a true knight who wants women to be able to defend themselves should the need arrive.

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Maturity: the difference between an adult and a child. And it doesn't require hair growth or voice changes to achieve, either - because maturity is about being a free adult, rather than a slave, a child, or otherwise unsuited to caring for anyone, including themselves.

Say that you have a problem - for example, a flat tire. Now, let's exacerbate the situation - you're wearing your good dress because you were heading home from a party. It's late at night...all you wanted to do was go home and climb into bed, and get some sleep before the next day. Frustrating...VERY frustrating...and you just want to start crying miserably. You want to bang your fists on your car in frustration, and scream and cry and throw things...but that won't fix your car. On the other hand, taking measures to protect your dress, then using the jack and the cross to switch out the spare tire, will get you home eventually.

Maturity is the art of taking responsibility for oneself - of being your own parent, and not relying on others to provide for even your most basic needs, as a child would. For example: not running up mammoth bills on credit cards for luxuries you want but don't necessarily need. Not expecting those around you to give to you when you fail to give back unto them (essentially what Dr Laura was talking about in "the Care and Feeding of Husbands"). Not expecting laws to be passed to restrict freedoms instead of policing your own children (or to quote something I once said in a video rental store, upon seeing the video game being returned by an outraged soccer mom with a ten year old son in tow: "YOU BOUGHT GRAND THEFT AUTO - FOR HIM!?"). And in an immediately physical self-defense situation, it means not expecting anyone else to assume the most basic responsibility of self preservation for you.

When it comes to the defense of yourself, your loved ones, and your private property, you cannot expect the police to even refrain from joining in on the assault upon your person and all you hold dear, let alone to protect you. And if you are married, your man may be willing to die to protect you - but he's not going to be around all the time, and one man is not going to hold off an entire street gang (though he will probably try, for your sake. And be horribly victimized himself in the process).

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In the 19th century, a frontier wife was expected to defend the home while the husband was out in the fields, farming or ranching or whatnot, should bandits or hostile hunter-gatherer types show up seeking a nonconsensual handout or redress for encroachment upon ancestral lands. Should they come under attack while together, say while crossing the plains in covered wagons, he would be the one firing one of two rifles...with her reloading the other one while he took aim and fired. She slaughtered animals, cutting up their carcasses to provide meat to feed her family. She worked as hard as her husband did, and was as respected by him for her labors in the home as he was respected for his efforts to provide for them.

The secret that these truly strong women all shared, was the awareness of the inherant foolishness in the juvenile's approach to problem solving: "when in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream, and shout." Crying won't help. Screaming at situations    more >>