here ,and I may be wrong, is on the female who steps back from an engagment, and the social consequences for her.

Duels were becoming thought less and less appropriate for this type of case during the 18th century.Laurence Stone, inBroken Lives is of the opinion that the growing emphasis on monetary value of wives ,hubands etc can be seen in the number of cases brought for "criminal conversation",which indicates that ecomomic recompense for damage to one "property" was in the ascendant.

In the 16th and early 17th centuries one indeed would expect a cuckloded husband to fight a duel( especially if he were of the gneteel or aristocratic class),but from the late 17th cenutry onwards, court action to obtain monetary compensation was the preferred route.