In a couple of Trollope novels (circa 1860), women are jilted and the jilters are "thrashed" by male protectors (a brother in one instance, a would-be lover in another). Trollope clearly approves of this action -- which in each case results in the thrashee being very publicly humiliated, a very effective revenge -- but also says that the social appropriateness of thrashing jilters was on the wane. He suggests that thrashing would have been common in an earlier time -- perhaps JA's. But this may be too far afield to be helpful here.