if the man appraoched the woman and slapped her - He is the biggest piece of shite in history and deserves an ass whooping then jail.
if the man is talking and the woman consciously walks across the room to assault him in front of everyone... his natural reaction - anyone's natural reaction to the serious pain that is being slapped hard in the face - might be to slap back.
All of us can say "I would never hit her back" - but that searing pain and shock might set something off we don't know we have. most people who go to jail for murdering someone don't deliver a detailed plan - they're just in a place and some shit pops off.
In this case, she violently slapped him, and she planned every second of it while walking. He was in serious pain slapped. if a women slapped me, I'd do everythiung possible to turn around and take out the anger and pain i'm feeling by punching the wall about 12 times.
but until any of us is hit like that, hard to say what our physical reaction would be. After all, we're just slightly smarter monkeys on a flying rock in space. We're animals. primal things happen with extreme pain. You can show the most liberal, anti-gun person in the world. You punch her 1 year old in his crib, and I bet she puts 11 rounds in the bad guy before she knows what is happening. Circumstances change a whole lotta theory.