What happens if someone refuses a duel?

Remember Young's musing's about how he was becoming a cloakroom joke and conversations would stop whenever he would showup. The CA might have had to defend him in public but in private he was a joke.

From a historical standpoint, most duels weren't necessarily intended to be lethal. That is not to say you could not lose your life, but the intent isn't necessarily to kill the other person but to prove your willingness to back up words with deeds. As a result, many duels had conditions. For example, 3 passes with a lance, three passes with a sword, three passes with a dagger. Or 5 passes with blunted lances.

There are also cultural matters to take into account. The italians for instance were mad about duelling, but they had a dueling culture that emphasized less-lethal duelling so you had alot of duels, but fewer deaths. You can see this reflected in certain fighting manuscripts where the less lethal dueling techniques emphasize style and flair, whereas the stuff intended to kill was straight forward and utterly practical.

The French on the other hand loved dueling as much as the Italians, but their dueling culture was lethal and accounted for a not-insignificant proportion of deaths amongst the nobility. French dueling culture moderated in time, but continued right up to the middle of the twentieth century, and there is footage online of journalists and political figures dueling with sharpened foils.

The Germans developed the tradition of Academic fencing, the mensurfechten. Ever notice the traditional stereotype of the German arisocrat with a scar on his face and a monocle? That's from mensur. Aristocrats were expected to join duelling societies and engage in regular duels with specially sharpened weapons. They developed a special type of fencing that emphasized cuts to the face and shoulders. You 'won' by bearing your wounds with good humour. This style of fencing left scars on the face, and sometimes. resulted in blindness in one or even both eyes. Interestingly, mensur societies still exist in German universities.

Regardless In the european tradition, the only duels which required a lethal outcome were judicial duels, which were always to the death.

i don t get duelling

i would never do it myself

and if anyone thought im not proper because i don t duel i wouldn t trade with those people

their loose

dueling is for idiots without words

my opinion

svenhauke wrote:i don t get duelling

i would never do it myself

and if anyone thought im not proper because i don t duel i wouldn t trade with those people

their loose

dueling is for idiots without words

my opinion

Amen. Mine as well.

Don

n7axw wrote:

svenhauke wrote:i don t get duelling

i would never do it myself

and if anyone thought im not proper because i don t duel i wouldn t trade with those people

their loose

dueling is for idiots without words

my opinion

Amen. Mine as well.

Don

And, under Manticoran law, that is a right you both have.

However, the majority of people who know of your refusal will consider you a coward. If you refuse a duel, there will be unofficial repercussions. If you are a business owner or sales rep, your customers may decide they no longer wish to do business with a coward. If you work in an office, you will probably never be able to advance again, because they can't risk promoting somebody with no honor; Lord only knows what you might steal. Or you could be a commodities man or stock broker whom nobody wants handling their money. If you are in a position above others, (manager, teacher, leader of any kind,) people will no longer respect your authority. Nobody will ever take your word for something, and you will never have a handshake deal again. No politician could ever be re-elected after refusing a duel, and even a member of the Lords would lose the majority of his influence. It would almost certainly (unofficial of course) affect any military promotion board.

Plus, what kind of parent raises a coward? Your parents may lose respect, and suffer everything listed above, admittedly to a lesser degree. And your siblings and children as well; blood tells, after all.

crewdude48 wrote:
And, under Manticoran law, that is a right you both have.

However, the majority of people who know of your refusal will consider you a coward. If you refuse a duel, there will be unofficial repercussions. If you are a business owner or sales rep, your customers may decide they no longer wish to do business with a coward. If you work in an office, you will probably never be able to advance again, because they can't risk promoting somebody with no honor; Lord only knows what you might steal. Or you could be a commodities man or stock broker whom nobody wants handling their money. If you are in a position above others, (manager, teacher, leader of any kind,) people will no longer respect your authority. Nobody will ever take your word for something, and you will never have a handshake deal again. No politician could ever be re-elected after refusing a duel, and even a member of the Lords would lose the majority of his influence. It would almost certainly (unofficial of course) affect any military promotion board.

Plus, what kind of parent raises a coward? Your parents may lose respect, and suffer everything listed above, admittedly to a lesser degree. And your siblings and children as well; blood tells, after all.

And that sort of pressure is the greatest single flaw of Manticoran society. I would expect that there are people who have left Manticore and even turned against Manticore because of what has happened to them or someone that they love because of the code duelo.
Still I wonder what would happen if someone challenged to a duel attacked and mocked the whole idea of dueling. Or if someone not involved in dueling organized reciprocal shunning of those issuing challenges and those putting pressure on people to engage in dueling. Support for dueling is not universal but opposition to it seems surprisingly tepid. There doesn't seem to be anyone saying that dueling and the pressure to respond to duels are despicable. Is there anyone who makes a point of associating with those who are being ostracized? Is there anyone who calls the pressure for dueling moral cowardice, which it is?