You have to admit, when Pistols At Dawn was a thing, nobody casually made a guy's wife the butt of jokes when he's right there in the room. Consequences help keep people polite. Feudal Japan, for instance, went way too far with it. But you didn't fuck around in Feudal Japan. You minded your manners.
These days, you're lucky if you're allowed to defend an immediate threat to your life without going to jail for it. We're expected to abdicate any personal agency and just stand by helplessly, as if you're some sort of invalid, and trust that The State will step in and give us justice. How's that working out? Everyone behaving politely out there, are they?