(a) Thus, it is a combat, and hence the “suicide duel,” in which the contenders draw lots with the understanding that the loser must kill himself within a specified time, is not properly a duel.
(b) A duel is prearranged, that is, the time, place, and weapons are determined in advance. Hence, if two feudists meet accidentally and proceed at once to shoot, their combat is not strictly a duel. It is not necessary, however, that a formal letter of challenge and a letter of acceptance precede the fight.
(c) It is between two persons, that is, a determinate combatant is matched against a determinate opponent. A true duel, however, might be carried on between many couples simultaneously, as in the fight between the twelve soldiers of Abner and the twelve soldiers of Joab (II Kings, ii. 13-17). The presence of seconds or witnesses is not essential to a duel.
(d) A duel is fought with deadly weapons, that is, with such arms as are capable of inflicting severe wounds, so that there is serious danger of grave wound or mutilation or death. There is no duel, therefore, if one fights with weapons that cannot do serious harm (such as fists, light sticks, mud), or if by agreement one uses dangerous weapons in a way that precludes injury (e.g., by padding the edge of one’s sword, loading one’s revolver with blanks, firing into the air, as in sham or mock duels). But academic duels, in which students try to stab each other in the face with small daggers, are true duels; for, while the fighters are well protected in vital parts and serious or fatal wounds rarely happen, it remains true that this manner of fighting is mortally dangerous. The same remark applies to duels fought on condition that only one or two rounds of shots shall be fired, or that fighting shall cease as soon as blood has been drawn.
(e) A duel is fought for the purpose of settling a private quarrel. A hand-to-hand combat during battle between two soldiers of contending armies is not a duel in the proper sense of the word, since there is no private quarrel between them, but only the public quarrel of their countries.
1436. The Morality of Duelling.—(a) Generally, the duel is mortally sinful. Like ordinary fighting, it is against charity, and in addition it includes a will to kill or gravely injure another, to expose one’s own life or limb to chance, and to usurp the function of the State. This applies to the challenged as well as to the challenger, for one can decline the combat to which one is dared.
(b) Exceptionally, a duel would not be sinful, if it took on the character of a war, or of self-defense against an unjust aggressor. Thus, in order to shorten a war or to lessen the bloodshed, it might be lawful to make the whole issue depend on a single combat between the commanders or between champions chosen from opposing armies, as in the case of David and Goliath (I Kings, xvii); but in modern times such a practice has been abandoned. Again, if a person had to choose between certain death, if he refused a duel, and possible death, if he consented to a duel, it would seem that he is in the position of one attacked by an unjust aggressor; but it is not easy to picture such a case as happening in normal conditions.
1437. The Fallacy of the Arguments for Duelling.—(a) The amusement of the spectators was the purpose of the gladiatorial duels fought in ancient Rome. But today there is no one who would not grant that the butchering of human beings to make a holiday for the populace is savagery.
(b) The decision of doubtful cases before the courts was the purpose of the judicial duels fought among the Germans and Lombards in the early Middle Ages. But manifestly such duels are a temptation of God, since they rashly call on Him to disclose, through a duel between the litigants, what the evidence in court did not disclose. The outcome of the duel shows which party is stronger or more skilful, not which is in the right.
(c) Training in bravery and the termination of serious differences is the excuse offered for military and university duels. But to kill, cripple, or brutalize youth does not make the nation stronger, and the substitution of violence for law as a means of settling disputes is an encouragement to crime.